Losing to James Potter
by Frozen in Motion
Summary: COMPLETE! Lily and James have been competing for the spotlight since first year. What happens when James starts to pull aheadafter he decides he doesn't care anymore because he's in love with Lily? And how can he convince her he's not just an adversary?
1. The First Six Years

Disclaimer: I.  Own.  Nothing.  You know.  J.K. Rowling owns all the rights to harry potter.

A/N—This is a bit different from most things I've read on ff.net.   Lily isn't a loner.  Lily isn't a loser.  Lily isn't abused.  Lily isn't Hermione-like.  Lily is just as popular as James potter _and_ she plays Quidditch as well.  Actually Lily is MORE popular than James Potter—and the reason she hates him?  He's been trying to steal her spotlight since first year.  It didn't help that in fifth year he decided that he had a CRUSH on her.  For six years Lily has been able to keep James OUT of HER spotlight.  But what happens when he's made captain of the Quidditch team _and_ Head Boy.  And why does nothing seem to be going exactly the way she planned?

CHAPTER ONE: The first six years.  (A/N—this is just little bits of what happened from first year to sixth year.  Next chapter will start with seventh year and soon after ROMANCE will ensue.)

First Year!

The Gryffindor first years were in Charms class, learing the _wingardium leviosa_ charm.  They all had feathers to practice on.  So far, none of the students had been able to master the charm.  However, Lily Evans was bound to change that.

"_Wingardum leviosa!_" she said, swishing and flicking (a/n—hahahaha) her wand.  Her feather rose about two feet off her desk.

"Very nice, miss Evans!  Look class, miss Evans has done it!" professor Flitwick said, applauding Lily.

James Potter scowled at his feather.

"Wow!  Look!  It's someone better than James!  Do  you—"

"SHUT UP, Sirius!  I can do it!"

Sirius crossed his arms.  "Prove it, then."

"Fine.  I will.  _Wingardium leviosa!_" James bellowed, pointing his wand at his feather after doing the swish-flick movement he thought was stupid.

And James _did_ do it.  His feather rose about five feet off his desk.  _That would be three feet higher than that Evans girl did it!_ James thought smugly.

"Look here!  James Potter did it too, professor!" Sirius called out across the room.

Professor Flitwick scuttled across the room.  "So he has!  Class!  See, Mr. Potter has done it as well.  Look at his technique…." Flitwick went on.  James smiled arrogantly—a smile Lily Evans saw.  Though she did not know it then, it was a smile she would grow to immensely abhor.

"What a PRAT!" Lily muttered under her breath.

Her friend Mel turned.  "You're mad because he floated his feather higher than you did?"

"Yep," Lily seethed.

Mel crossed her arms.  "Well, ok.  I guess if you're just gonna stand there with steam pouring out from your ears _I'm_ going to try."

Lily snatched up the feather protectively.  "Not until I float my feather TEN feet!"

Lily muttered the spell and swished and flicked.  Her feather rose off the desk until it was nearly touching the ceiling.

"Professor!  Professor!  Look how high mine went!" Lily yelled.

Everyone turned and Professor Flitwick came back over to Lily's side of the room.  The rest of the class stared in awe at Lily's feather, way up by the ceiling.  Except for James Potter.  He nearly crushed his feather in his fist.

She would not beat him again.

Oh how wrong he was.

Throughout the year they both competed for the spot of being best at everything.  Well such a competition does not go unnoticed, and without meaning to, they actually became the some of the most popular first years.  Competition grew even more fierce when they _realized_ this fact.  Of course being most popular would mean winning in a big way.  Finally summer holiday came and they got a break.  But not before Lily pulled ahead by getting better marks on final exams.

***

Second Year 

Quidditch try-outs.  (A/N—I know there's some, er, disagreement as to whether or not James was a Seeker or a Chaser.  Before anyone gets mad at me, I'm making James a Chaser because it works better with the plot—it's easier to compete at something if they play the same position.)

James assumed he had the upper hand this time.  He came from a wizarding family.  He had had years of practice on a broom.  All Lily Evans had had were the few crappy lessons that Hogwarts offered.

Maybe he should stop assuming.  It really didn't get him anywhere that time.

What happened was that Lily tried, and tried _hard,_ whereas James thought he was a sure-shot for Chaser.  Of course they both made the team, but… Lily looked better at try-outs.  Why?  Because _she_ was not the one who behaved like a stuck-up pompous ass.

A snatch of some conversation they had before try-outs…

"D'you want me to bewitch a mattress to float under you?  You might need it.  Falls are quite nasty," James asked Lily while they were waiting to fly.

"No, not that I'd expect you to know _how_ to do that."

"You know you've got nothing on me this time.  I've been flying for years."

"So?  My sister's been playing the piano since she was four.  She's fifteen now and she's bloody awful," Lily retorted.  (a/n—needed to put that in, sorry it's like… probably not true?)

"We'll see what happens when we get out there," James said.

Lily just nodded.

And they did see.  Oh boy did they see.  Well, it's more what JAMES saw.

A snatch of some conversation they had after try-outs…

"Mmm… what was that you were saying about me falling?" Lily questioned nastily.

James crossed his arms and said nothing.

"You know, if you had tried, I admit that you probably would have been better than me.  Ah, that's the problem with people like you."

"People like me?"

"Yes, you're so arrogant you think nobody will ever beat you and that you never have to sweat to do anything.  Too bad you're always wrong as well."  Lily turned and walked away.

James stood there fighting the almost overwhelming urge to curse her retreating back and long red hair.

***^

Third Year 

A Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Slytherin.  And what are James and Lily doing?  Throughout the whole game they're trying to see who can score more goals than the other.  They refuse to pass to one another which leads to some sticky situations.  Ultimately their little competition wins them the game because of all the goals they each scored—mainly because it kept the Slytherins from scoring at all, and they actually distracted the Slytherin Seeker.  However they got in trouble with the captain for not playing "like a team", and that behavior like that in the future might not win them the game—it would probably _cost_ them the game.

Of course, Lily still won.  She scored six goals to James' five.

***^

Fourth Year 

Fourth Year was quite interesting.  Considering they were all fourteen, and had er… raging hormones.  (A/N—LOL!)  It turned into somewhat of a dating competition.  Of course James was quite handsome and Lily was becoming very pretty.  Therefore, adding to the fact that they were both the most popular students in the fourth year, and becoming known to some of the other years as well, they had _lots_ of date offers.

And of course, James turned it into a competition.

"So I've already dated—let's see—five girls and it's only the second week of school!  How amazing!" James said loudly and pointedly to Sirius, Remus and Peter at breakfast one morning while Lily was walking by.

Of course she heard, with James practically yelling that so maladroitly.

She had only been on _two_ dates, but she had had four offers.  She refused to stand for this.

Two weeks later, Lily was the one maladroitly saying things to her close friends Mel and Kaye.  "Wow, I've had just absolutely _so_ many hot guys asking me out.  I mean, there's only so much time in a weekend!  I feel bad that I've had to turn down half of them already!"

And so it went on through the whole year.  It didn't even seem to bother the other students that the only thing they seemed to matter for that year was to provide dating partners for Lily and James.  Actually they found it rather fun, for if they needed a date they could get one—almost guaranteed—from Lily or James.  Also, they used it as a way to subtly root for whichever they liked better.

But at the end of the year both Lily _and_ James lost count, and they couldn't determine who won.  So what was that twinge in James' stomach?  It's not as if he lost….

***^

Fifth Year 

(A/N—you all know the bit in OotP—assume that's part of this too)

Lily Evans had taken up a considerable amount of space in James' mind all summer.  He didn't know why and was determined to get her out.  He attributed it to the fact that he was so obsessed with beating her.  Maybe a little too obsessed.  When he arrived at Hogwarts the pit of his stomach dropped out.  He _fancied_ her.  Lily Evans!  How did _that_ happen?  It was going to ruin everything!

Unless…

Could he use it in his favor?  Would Lily heartlessly rejecting peace offerings push him higher up than her on the ladder of popularity?

Apparently not.  It didn't seem to affect anything except for Lily's utmost loathing for him.  That increased immensely—more than anyone thought possible.

James actually stopped trying to beat her.  But she didn't stop trying to beat him.  She was determined to wipe that arrogant smirk off his pretty-boy face.  It helped a lot that she was made a prefect and he wasn't.

***^

Sixth Year 

They found out over the summer what they had scored on their O.W.L.s.  But… it took a while to find out who scored better than whom.  Lily scored better in Charms, and James scored better in Transfiguration.  Other than that, they were pretty equal.

Hanging over their heads was the fact that next year was seventh year—the year when they could possibly become Head Boy and Head Girl.  Also added was the fact that their Quidditch captain was graduating and they needed a new one.

Lily was still slightly ahead at the end of sixth year.

But that was all about to change.

**End chapter one**

(A/N—hope that was amusing—the real plot starts in chapter two, I just thought it would be fun to do this… a bit of background.  Well it was fun to write. 

p.s. I really really really do like reviews)


	2. Train Ride

Disclaimer.  I do not like lawsuits.  If I liked them then maybe I'd pretend that this was my stuff.  Also, this is a fanfiction site.  It's a bit self explanatory that anything on this website does not belong to the writers here.  If you want original go to a book store.  JKR owns HP.

CHAPTER TWO!  Train Ride.

*~*~*

James stood on platform 9 ¾ and looked around for Remus and Peter.  Sirius was on the train getting a compartment.  James could feel the Head Boy badge in his pocket as he moved.  He didn't want to be stuck in a compartment with the prefects for the whole train ride.  He figured he'd go in there, talk, and leave as soon as possible.  He was almost positive that Lily Evans had been appointed Head Girl, and ever since he had received his badge he'd been imagining the look on her face when she saw him: angry, indignant, shocked, disappointed, annoyed…  But for some reason now he didn't want to wear the badge.  He knew he could run into her at any moment but…

He wondered what she'd say when she found out who the new captain of the Quidditch team was.

"PRONGS!" someone yelled out over the crowd.  James turned to the source of the noise.  He saw Sirius and Remus with their head out of one of the windows on the train.

"Come here!" Sirius bellowed to him.

James obeyed and pushed through the crowd.  He didn't notice that he knocked into Lily Evans as he walked.

But Lily Evans did.

Her head whipped around and she was about to sling some nasty remark at him, except for she noticed that he hadn't seen her.

She also noticed that he didn't have a Head Boy badge on.

Lily elbowed her friend Kaye.

"Did you see that?" she asked.

"See what?" Kay said, confused.

Lily nodded her head in the direction James had gone.  "James Potter didn't have a Heads badge on!" she exclaimed excitedly.  "I knew he was too much of a delinquent.  I bet you Remus Lupin got it.  He was the boy prefect for Gryffindor anyway."

In Actuality, Lily was quite surprised that James didn't have a Head Boy badge on.  She was sure that he would get it.  Of course she had been selected for Head Girl, but… well it was just surprising.  And it also seemed like a sign that the year was going to go well.

"There's Mel," Kaye pointed out.

The two girls met their friend and got on the train.  Lily excused herself to go to the prefects/heads compartment and said she'd be back shortly.

Of course she was in for a surprise when she got there.

She slid open the door to the compartment and… there was James Potter among all the random prefects, including Remus Lupin.

And in all her surprise and anger Lily actually spoke.  "What the hell!?" she actually said aloud.

James just knew she was talking about him as soon as he heard her voice.

Butterflies shot through his stomach as he smiled.  An angry Lily Evans was better than no Lily Evans.

"Come on, Evans, don't tell me you're surprised?" James said in a slightly arrogant tone.

All the prefects quieted down from the low noise they were making a second ago.  It looked like the competition had begun and they didn't want to miss a minute of it.

Lily was about to retort that she would've been less surprised if Snape had become the _Gryffindor_ prefect when she remembered that she had been expecting this all summer and bit her tongue.

They barely talked through the meeting (a/n—Harry wasn't a prefect so I don't know what goes on in that compartment and I'm not in the mood to make it up… sorry) and when they did talk, it was more talking _at_ each other as opposed to talking to each other.

Lily was glad when she could leave.

"So have you found out who's been made Quidditch captain yet?" James asked her as she was exiting the compartment.

She turned grudgingly around.  "No," she replied shortly.

He didn't give any indication that he knew at all.  "Just wondering… see you then."

She walked off, and he stood there looking after her.

For some reason, being able to hold things over her head and be better at her was losing its appeal.  He really liked her… he'd rather be dating her than competing with her.  And it was apparent that trying to be the best wasn't the way to go about winning her affections.  The only problem was… he didn't know what the best way was.

*~*~*

Back in Lily's compartment, she was still seething over James… not that she had any real reason to seethe.

"I hate him, I hate him, I _hate _him!" She grumbled.

Kaye raised one eyebrow.  "Why, did he beat you at something else?  Did he get Quidditch captain or something?"

"No, he's Head Boy and I don't know _who_ got Quidditch captain," Lily replied.

But suddenly a horrible thought struck Lily.  _What if he did get Quidditch captain?_

In just a few hours time, her thoughts that the year was going to go well had changed into thoughts that the year was going to be horrible.

Lily sighed and leaned back.  It was going to be a long year.

**end chapter two**


	3. Don't Stare!

Disclaimer:  This. Is. A. Fanfiction. Site.  If I was a writer I highly doubt I'd be putting stuff up here when I could just go get it published.  Hehehehehe.

A/N—sorry last chapter was so short!  I was pressed for time and I wanted to put up _something_.  I'll try to make this one longer.  And I'll try to write about Peter as much as possible, because I hate it when people just omit him all together, but I really don't like him so if he's not in there much… I'm trying my best!

p.s. Anyone heard the song "always" by Bon Jovi?  Oh god it's so sad.  And beautiful.  I absolutely love it.  Jon Bon Jovi is so sexy.

CHAPTER THREE!

(A/N—starts pretty much where chapter 2 left off… they were on the train, now they're getting off)

"So, Prongs," Sirius said to James as they were getting off the train.  "Have you told Evans who the Quidditch captain is?"

James looked down at the ground.  "No," he said.

"WHY NOT!?" Sirius burst out.  "It's a perfect thing to hold over her head ALL YEAR!"

"Yeah, I know," James sighed.  When Sirius looked at him strangely he amended with: "I mean, I'm just waiting for the opportune moment." (A/N—POTC!!!!! You know, Captain Jack Sparrow?  I love Johnny Depp!)

They reached the horseless carriages and all four Marauders climbed into one.  (A/N—this isn't an angsty story so I'm not gonna go into death of ppl and all that jazz…)

*~*~*

When Lily, Mel and Kaye reached the Great Hall, they seated themselves at the Gryffindor table and watched the rest of the school surge in.  To Lily's dismay, the Marauders seated themselves about two seats down from Lily and her friends, so that James was almost diagonally across from her.

After the sorting, Dumbledore got up to speak like he always did.  This year he seemed to want to talk to them mostly _before_ they ate instead of after.  Oh well, whatever floated his boat.  As he was talking, Lily noticed that James was not, in fact, looking at Dumbledore, but rather was staring quite obviously at her.

"Stop staring at me!" she hissed at him.

A small smile tickled James' lips as he replied in a soft voice, "then stop being so hard not to stare at."

Lily rolled her eyes at him and turned back to Dumbledore with a disgusted look on her face.

However, Dumbledore was finished and food was appearing on the table.

"So what was that about?" Mel asked Lily as she helped herself to some food.

Lily raised her eyebrows.  "What was what about?"

Kaye joined in.  "You know, what were you and James Potter talking about?"

Lily made a face.  "He was staring at me!  So I told him to stop."

"He's in _loooooooove_ with you!" Kaye teased.

"He's not!  If he was I'd want to kill myself," Lily informed her haughtily.

Mel swallowed a bite of food.  "You know, he _does_ fancy you…"

"He did in fifth year!  How do you know he still does?" Lily asked, feeling somewhat annoyed.

"Oh he still does," Kaye laughed.

"Wonderful!  He's staring at me again!" Lily exclaimed, exasperated.  She took another bite of food, refusing to look into those hazel eyes.

A few seats away, the owner of the hazel eyes tore his gaze off of Lily Evans.

"Give it up Prongs, she's never going to like you," Remus mumbled to James.

James chucked a roll at Remus' head.  "Shut up you!"

Sirius laughed.  "I reckon Moony is right though."

James actually growled at both of them.  Peter looked scared, though he didn't say anything.

"Hey, I thought _I_ was the dog here!" Sirius whined.

"You're going to be a GIRL if you don't shut up soon!" James hissed.  Then he burst out laughing at the horrified look on Sirius' face.

"Damn, no wonder Evans thinks you're a prick," Sirius muttered under his breath, so low that nobody could hear it.

~*~*~

The next day there was a notice on the Gryffindor notice board. (a/n—what is that thing anyway?  If anyone knows tell me in a review so I don't look like a fool just b/c I'm too lazy to look it up… I know they have one…)  It was to inform the Quidditch team that there would be a practice in a few days time.

Lily was glad.  She really wanted to get back to playing Quidditch, and she really wanted to know who the captain was.  She and James weren't the only seventh years on the team, there was also Sirius (a beater), and the other chaser, a girl named Alyssa that Lily rarely talked to.  The team really needed to hold try-outs.  They were now missing the keeper and one of the beaters (the seeker was a sixth year).

~*~*~

"So James, I saw that notice up," Sirius told James the morning of the first practice.

"Yeah, you better be at practice," James threatened playfully.

Sirius grinned.  "Have you told Evans who the captain is yet?"

James bit his lip.  "Er… no?"

"Come on Prongs!" Sirius began, "you know if she finds out at practice then—hold on a minute… if she finds out at practice it will be even _more_ humiliating."

"Yeah," James muttered.

Two years ago, James would have loved this idea more than anything.  Now, something about it didn't seem so appealing any more.  He should probably not wait until that night to tell Lily who the captain was.  Maybe he'd send her a note or something….

A note was a good idea, he decided.  He wrote a very short anonymous note stating that he knew she wanted to know who the captain was, and that it was James Potter.  James knew she'd be mad, and he didn't want to see her mad.

During one of their classes he floated it onto her desk when he thought nobody was looking, and then quickly hid his wand and watched her reaction to the note.

Lily's face didn't change, but she folded the note back up and very discreetly crushed it in her fist.  Then she dropped it into her bag, probably not to be taken out for a very long time.

~*~*~

Finally, it was time for Quidditch practice.  James and Sirius made their way down to the pitch after they had changed and gotten out their brooms.  They found the other three members of the team flying randomly around the pitch when they arrived.

James called them down.

"As you probably already know, I'm the new captain this year.  Our first game isn't for a month and a half, and it's against Hufflepuff.  But we still really need to hold try-outs for new players.  I was thinking next Friday starting at five and going until whenever they finish?" James asked the rest of the team to make sure it was ok.

He got random nods or small noises of consent from everyone.

"Alright then, let's get started!" James said, smiling.

James went over some basic stuff… conditioning and such.  They couldn't work on plays and strategies until they had a complete team.

Practice was uneventful.  Lily dutifully ignored James throughout the whole thing.

When it was over, Lily was hard pressed to admit that it had actually been a difficult practice.  And it had also probably been beneficial as well.  She did not want to admit that James might actually turn out to be a good captain.

She was just waiting for him to hold this Quidditch team captain thing over her head.  It was only a matter of time really….

**end chapter three**

A/N—sorry it's still kinda short.  Again, I'm pressed for time and I wanted to put something up…. Maybe I'll edit this later or something.  I swear it will get better!  Chapters will get longer and have more detail!  I still love reviews!


	4. Snape Sucks

Disclaimer: see previous chapters, and do not sue me.

A/N—I love Moulin Rouge. I just got the Moulin Rouge 2 CD. It's the second soundtrack and has stuff on it like a whole bunch of kick ass instrumentals! Yeah, not relevant, I know.

And now for the story!

CHAPTER FOUR: Snape Sucks

Lily managed to avoid James through the weekend and all of Monday too. She _really_ didn't want to hear him gloat about being made Quidditch captain. _How_ could things start off so _badly_? She would just have to get him by kicking his ass at the next Quidditch game. Maybe there was even more she could do. She could make his futile attempts at being Head Boy pale in comparison to all the awesome stuff she'd do as Head Girl.

Tuesday morning Lily wolfed down her breakfast. Truly, she didn't know why she was avoiding James quite this avidly… but hey, whatever worked.

She was slowly trudging towards double potions when she felt a light pressure on her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed it was a hand, and when she tilted her head to see who it was she quickly sidestepped away with a disgusted look on her face.

"Am I not allowed to say hello?" James asked, an amused glint in his hazel eyes.

Lily sighed irritably. "Touching me is _not _saying hello. Come to gloat?"

James raised his eyebrows and looked genuinely confused—but the amusement had not yet left his eyes. Lily HATED that.

"Gloat--? About what?"

Lily scowled. "Well if you don't know then I'm not going to tell you."

Comprehension dawned on James' face, but Lily didn't notice through her stormy glare. James didn't talk on the subject, however. In fact, he changed it.

"We're supposed to plan the prefect meetings, right?"

Lily nodded curtly, just barely moving her head.

James continued. "So, I thought maybe… we should have one soon?" he finished in a question, searching for some sign of consent from Lily.

"Sure. Ok. Whatever you say," she bit sarcastically.

James actually shivered a bit from the ice in her voice.

"When is good for you?" he questioned cautiously.

Lily shrugged. "Whatever. Whenever we don't have Quidditch practice, though that's for _you_ to decide." She muttered the last bit, and if it was possible her voice got even colder.

"Thursday? We have tryouts on Friday…." James smiled nervously.

They reached the dungeon in which potions class took place. Lily and James stopped as Lily briefly turned to James to finish the conversation.

"Kay, fine, put up a notice then," she said, finalizing the subject. She walked into the dungeon leaving James standing at the door.

He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and entered the class after her.

--------------

Later that night there was a notice up about a prefects meeting on Thursday at 8:00 in the library. Lily was astounded. James _actually_ did something responsible.

Lily went up to the girl's dormitory to find Kaye and Mel sitting on the floor playing wizard's chess.

"Hey wha—" Lily began, shutting the door.

"Shhhhh!" hissed Mel, not taking her eyes off the chessboard. She moved a piece and smiled in triumph. "Checkmate!" she laughed happily.

"Agh!" exclaimed Kaye. "She beat me! Did you see that?"

"Um… what's the big deal? I thought you two were both equally bad," Lily said.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that…" Kaye responded, tossing a glare at Lily before helping Mel put the chess away.

"So Lily—is there a Quidditch game any—" Mel began, before cutting herself off.

Lily sat down on her bed. "You can still talk about Quidditch. Just because that sad excuse for a human was made captain doesn't mean that I am in any way worse than him. And you know we never have games this early in the year."

"Mad because he got captain and you didn't?" Kaye asked.

Lily looked at her with raised eyebrows. "No!" she said, rather unconvincingly.

"Hah! Yea right!" Kaye sniggered.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Fine then, don't believe me."

Kaye sat down on her bed, which was right next to Lily's. "Oh come on, first he was Head Boy, then he was captain…"

"Are you _trying_ to make me angry?" Lily demanded, her eyes narrowing to green slits.

"Considering all we have to do is bring up James Potter and steam comes out of your ears…" Mel muttered. "He's not _that_ bad…"

"Maybe it's just that you fancy him!" Lily giggled.

"I do not!" shrieked Mel, throwing her pillow at Lily's head.

Lily caught the pillow and threw it back. "Like you could actually hit me…" she taunted.

"Miss Quidditch over there seems so high and mighty!" Kaye said in a mock-haughty tone.

"Let's get her!" Mel yelled, jumping off her bed, grabbing the pillow back from Lily, and savagely trying to hit her with it, laughing the whole time.

Lily frantically yanked up her pillow and began to defend herself from the pillow assault she was receiving from Mel—and Kaye who had just joined in.

----------------

Thursday night arrived, and Lily found herself reading in the library at 7:45, having nothing better to do. She had her feet propped up on a table and was leaning back in her chair when a voice made her jump and she nearly fell.

"Lily?" It was James.

She quickly yanked her feet off the table and sat up straight.

"Um… I was hoping you'd be in here early. We've gotta go over some stuff before the prefects all get here."

Lily looked at him skeptically. She hoped this wasn't a trick just to spend time with her—and if it was she hoped that he wouldn't dare do it again. "Like what?"

"Such as when should we go to Hogsmeade, should there be a ball, stuff like that."

Crossing her arms, Lily replied, "shouldn't we talk about that when the prefects get here?"

"I thought we should have some idea. If you didn't notice, the prefects are all from _different_ houses and if this meeting goes anything like some of the others we've had then I'm not expecting them to all agree—or even _want_ to agree," James snapped at her, then looked sorry for it immediately afterwards.

As much as she hated to admit it, he did have a point. It was mainly the Slytherin prefects—Snape and Sirius' cousin Bellatrix. They made a point of not agreeing on anything unless the Head Girl and Head Boy had it planned out already.

"Alright," Lily consented. "I guess we should start with Hogsmeade. Um… first week in November maybe? So the students can do their Christmas shopping?"

"No, we've got our first game that week. Um… last week in October? Actually, Halloween is on a Sunday, so we could have it on the 30th maybe."

"That's fine. We can tell them. Is that it?" Lily asked somewhat impatiently. She didn't like having to be civil to James Potter more than was absolutely necessary.

"Yes, for now…" James trailed off and remained silent. He could tell Lily didn't like talking to him. Too bad he would give his right arm for her to smile at him _once_.

He was pondering what exactly the best way would be to win her over when a lot of prefects trickled into the library. It was nearly eight by that time.

When all the prefects had arrived, they began the meeting.

"We were thinking about having a Hogsmeade weekend on October 30th," James stated, introducing the subject.

Most of the prefects nodded in agreement. However, Snape spoke up just then.

"I don't think that will work for a lot of the people in our house—" he said in a slimy voice.

"What, do you have a KKK meeting or something?" Lily interrogated.

"What's the KKK?" Bellatrix demanded—actually she looked a little bit interested, if only because Lily had said it with a disgusted look on her face. (A/N—NOT in favor of ANY of that—I am NOT—repeat—NOT racist in any way. I don't even have anything against gay marriage.)

"A racist hate group," Lily hissed with narrowed eyes, putting emphasis on the word 'hate'.

"You know nothing of hate—" Snape started, but James interrupted.

"Enough already! Snape, I'm sure your house will deal with it if they can't go," he stated with finality.

Snape didn't reply. Lily could feel the rest of the prefects becoming tense. She knew the meeting wouldn't last much longer anyway.

"I think that's it for now. We'll probably have another one of these in a week," Lily said, standing up.

James got up too, and they left at the same time.

"Damn that Snape. We still had to talk to them about rounds and stuff—but it was just so uncomfortable after that," she fumed, not really caring that it was James she was talking to.

"Honestly, I don't even know how either of them became prefects," James replied. He didn't want to say anything stupid. For once, Lily was angrier at someone else than she was at him, and he didn't want to mess it up.

"Stupid idiots," Lily murmured. They walked the rest of the way to Gryffindor tower in silence. When they went inside the common room, Lily stormed all the way up to the girl's dormitories.

She slammed the door open.

Kaye was in there, doing her hair with her wand for fun.

"James again?" she inquired.

Lily slumped down on her bed. "No, it was those bloody Slytherins. They managed to ruin our prefects meeting so we didn't get ANYTHING done!"

"Well, look on the bright side. You have Quidditch tryouts tomorrow!" Kaye said, trying to be cheerful. She cast a spell at her hair to make it all pile up on top of her head.

"I don't know if I should look forward to that or dread it," Lily admitted.

Kaye laughed. "I guess you'll see tomorrow, then."

Lily sighed, a bit of her anger wearing off. "I guess," she repeated.

---end chapter four---

next chapter will have tryouts in it! woo hoo!

I still love reviews 


	5. Four Thirty AM

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N—since the rest of my chapters have been abysmally short, this one _will_ be long!

CHAPTER FIVE! _Four thirty AM_

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Lily awakened feeling a mix of excitement and dread. For a moment she couldn't recall the reason, but as she swung her legs out of bed and her bare feet hit the cold floor she remembered.

Quidditch tryouts.

The Gryffindor team was short two people, a beater and the keeper. Lily was still licking her wound from the fact that James had beaten her to the position of team captain—though she didn't let anyone know that. She just hoped he wouldn't mess up tryouts too badly. Selecting the wrong people for the team would mean a bad season, and she didn't want her last year at school to be dampened by a bad Quidditch season.

She glanced at her clock. It was six in the morning. Breakfast didn't begin for another hour and a half. The rest of her dormitory was sleeping still and she didn't want to wake them.

She quickly got dressed and went in the bathroom to brush her hair and the like, and she quietly went down to the common room, grabbing a book on the way. She had barely even wasted fifteen minutes in the bathroom, so she sat in her favorite squishy armchair and began to read her book. Actually, read isn't quite the right word. She barely got a glance at the pages when someone interrupted her.

"Up so early?" a male voice asked from one side of her. It sounded like someone was on a couch. She turned. Wonderful. James Potter lounged on one of the couches.

"I'm surprised you're up. Shouldn't you be back in your dorm drooling on your pillow or something else equally vile?" Lily hissed. She wasn't in the mood to be talking to James.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile as he replied: "actually, that would be Sirius. I'm up this early every day."

"Ha," Lily said, indicating that while she did believe that Sirius was, in fact, drooling on his pillow, she did _not_ believe that James got up this early every day.

"How can I prove it to you?"

Lily didn't want him proving anything to her. Then something occurred to her. She would make him meet her in the common room early on Monday. If he was lying, he'd have to get up early to prove it, and consequently he'd be grumpy all day. And if he wasn't lying, then there would be no harm done… not that she didn't want to cause him harm, though. She did.

"I think there is," she began. "Meet me down here on Monday at…. Um…. Four thirty." There was no way she was actually going to meet him there, but it would be a fun way to piss him off.

He raised his eyebrows in a "you're completely mad" kind of way, but he consented anyway.

This look was not lost on Lily. "You're the one who said you wanted to prove it."

"_Nobody_ gets up _that_ early," he retorted.

"Simple torture," Lily replied loftily. "Are you backing out now?"

James laughed softly. "You're turning this into a challenge. You're a sadist."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I didn't say I wanted you to hurt yourself or anything. I just want to know how the wonderful James Potter functions on lack of sleep."

"So you think about me so much that you're thinking about how well I function in the morning?"

Lily looked disgusted. "You wish I thought about you that much! The only thing I think about you is as an opponent."

That stung. But he just smiled. "Opponents for nearly seven years," he reminisced.

"Yeah, I won most of that," she responded meanly.

_This is kind of weird_, James thought. Although it was obvious that they were competing at everything, and there was an unspoken agreement between them about it, this was the first time they had actually talked about trying to beat one another at absolutely everything. He didn't know what to make of it. One wrong move and it could turn into a really nasty argument.

At the same time James was wrapped up in thought, for some reason Lily was mentally kicking herself for bringing up their competition and for being so snotty about it, too. They were tied. She knew they were tied because they had been tied for nearly seven years. It might have seemed like she was winning at one thing and James was winning at something else, but mostly all the students saw were the two most popular students in school (now head boy and head girl) showing nothing towards each other save animosity.

But the past was something that couldn't be changed, and there was still no way that Lily even wanted to attempt friendship with James. Besides, she liked the competition.

"Um anyway," she went on. "Quidditch tryouts today. I hope you actually have something competent. I don't want some losers on the team that are going to mess up the season."

James half-smiled half-glared at her. "You know, there is a reason I was selected as captain."

"Hmph," she muttered and turned her head. James could see he had touched a wound. He knew she was mad that she wasn't captain, but he didn't know she was _this_ mad.

"I feel bad for the team next year," James tried. He didn't care if she was mad, he just didn't want her to stop talking to him.

"Why?" she asked, turning back around.

James raised an eyebrow. "Because four of us are seventh years."

Lily laughed in an evil way. "Oh yea, because they need to find four people to fill our positions on the team. How will they ever replace our awesomeness?" she added in a sarcastic laugh.

"It's going to be hard, I don't think they can do it."

"You have no faith in people."

James raised both eyebrows this time. "Excuse me? _I_ have no faith in people? And… who am I talking to again?"

Lily pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I have more faith in people than you do," she said haughtily.

"Yea right, you won't even—" he stopped abruptly. He had just been about to say that she wouldn't give him a chance. But he would've been attacked for that.

"Won't even what?" Lily asked skeptically.

Just then a group of giggling second year girls galloped down the stairs into the common room. Lily glanced at the clock and realized that it was nearly seven. She had talked to James Potter for forty-five minutes!?!?

She hid her disgust. Instead she eyed the second years disdainfully and said to James, "I'm going to go back upstairs."

"Yeah, ok," he replied, and actually removed himself from the couch and went up the boy's dormitory, probably to wake Sirius up.

_Nobody finds out about that_, Lily thought to herself as she ascended the stairs.

------

The day had dragged on like a mouse pulling an elephant, but finally it was time for Quidditch tryouts. James wasn't exactly looking forward to them, but he wasn't dreading them either. He was just anxious to get the team together so they could get in some serious practice. He wanted to win the Quidditch cup very badly, even more so than he had in previous years because this year he was the captain.

He had the rest of the team assemble on the pitch fifteen minutes early, just so they could go over anything last minute.

"So, first we'll do anybody trying out for keeper, and then we'll move on to the beaters, ok?" James said to them.

He received nods or small noises of consent.

"Ok," he said, clapping his hands. "Let's begin."

The first twenty minutes of tryouts were positively abysmal. Most of the candidates for keeper were beyond horrible.

James had elected that the three chasers would begin each keeper with some really simple stuff like throwing the ball at the hoops to see if the candidate could catch at all. They expected people to make it past that, so they would try to make it harder and harder the more the person trying out survived.

Unfortunately, most people didn't even make it past the ball-throwing exercise.

During a moment of down time James turned to Lily and said, "I hope this isn't how everyone's going to be."

She agreed. They really needed to see some talent out there or Gryffindor was going to have a horrid Quidditch team.

James was on the ground discussing something with Sirius and Jeremy (the seeker) when the next person in line flew out in front of the goal posts.

"John Bloom," Alyssa whispered to Lily. "Fifth year. I've heard he's actually pretty good."

Lily studied the boy with mild interest. "I certainly hope so," she whispered back. "Hold on a sec," she yelled to Bloom. "James are you done?" she yelled down to James.

He looked up. "Sorry!" he yelled back. Then he turned back to Sirius and Jeremy. "I can't take much more of this…"

"Awfulness?" Sirius supplied.

James laughed. "Yeah. If there's been nobody good in the next ten minutes lets take a break from the keeper tryouts and move on to the beaters ok?"

Sirius nodded, and James kicked off and soared up to where Lily and Alyssa were hovering. Lily handed him the quaffle. James rolled his eyes and halfheartedly caught it, only half watching the kid at the goal.

Amazing. The kid caught it like it was way too easy. By this time a simple catch looked to James like extraordinary talent.

The kid tossed the quaffle back, and James watched Lily throw it from a strange angle, making it look like she was going to throw it in another direction. The kid caught that one too!

"Who is that?" James whispered to Alyssa.

"John Bloom," she told him. "Fifth year."

After some more exercises that were progressively more difficult, James decided that was enough—considering that John Bloom kid turned out to be pretty good, and at the moment was their best shot.

A few more abysmal people to go, and finally the keeper tryouts were finished.

The beater tryouts were uneventful, except when they became frightening, because one kid hit a bludger right towards the area where four of the existing teammates were hovering. As a result they all shot in different directions and actually almost managed to knock a few people out of the stands.

At the end, as they were reviewing the people, it turned out that the best bet for keeper was still John Bloom, and the best beater they had seen was actually a fourth year girl named Katie Stratford.

James was very relieved that they had found a suitable keeper after all of that disgustingly bad attempts at catching the quaffle they all had to endure. The notice about who made the team would go up tomorrow.

Needless to say, even though they didn't play much, the whole team fell asleep pretty fast that night.

-------

By Sunday night, Lily had forgotten all about her rendezvous at four thirty the next morning with James. But James hadn't. He actually went to bed (kind of) early so that he could get up at four thirty. It didn't matter exactly what he was doing, he just wanted to see Lily. And it had turned into a challenge and he couldn't pass up a challenge.

Lily didn't sleep well that night. She tossed and turned. She had a dream that she was falling, and she woke with a start. Turning on her lamp she glanced at the clock. Four twenty-five A.M. For some reason that rang a bell in her head, but she couldn't figure out why. Did she leave something in the common room or something?

Stumbling from the delirium of sleep, she nearly fell down the stairs. Why exactly was she going to the common room again?

A stair creaked on the boy's staircase. It all came back to her. _AGH!_ She thought. _I wasn't actually supposed to be downstairs when he woke up! It was like… a prank or something_.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and rubbed her eyes.

"Amazing," she said to James. She knew it was James without even looking. Who else would be up at the ungodly hour of four thirty in the morning?

He was almost as tired as she was. "Ok, so I came… but you didn't say anything about staying," he pointed out, yawning.

"You're right," she muttered.

"I'm going back to sleep. I hope you realize how pointless this was?" he asked.

"Yeah," she agreed. Come to think of it, she seemed to be doing a lot of pointless things around James lately (like ending the prefects meeting.)

They both trudged back up the stairs, and Lily actually did fall asleep properly when she got back into bed.

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End chapter five. I tried to make it long… was it long enough? I still really really love reviews, and I love all of you that did review.


	6. Quaffle Passing

Disclaimer.  I d o n o t o w n a n y t h i n g . . . y o u h a v e b e e n w a r n e d . . .

CHAPTER SIX!  Quaffle Passing

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur of quills and Quidditch robes.  Lily and James hardly spoke to one another (much to Lily's relief and James' disappointment.)  Their first Quidditch match against Ravenclaw was in the middle of October, and James wanted to make sure they were ready.  Ravenclaw wasn't much of a threat since their amazing captain had graduated the previous year, but James wasn't taking any chances.

The day before the match, however, Lily and James did end up talking…

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had just finished a long grueling and nearly impossible practice.

"James, do you realize that if you end up injuring any of us you're going to have to use backup players?" Lily said in between breaths after she'd dismounted form her broom.  The rest of the team grumbled in agreement.

James was tired too, but he tried to pretend that he wasn't.  "Stop complaining, you lot, it's not _that_ bad.  And do you want to win or don't you?" He asked, fighting to keep his breaths even.

"Come on, Prongs, I know you're tired," Sirius smirked, coming up behind James.

James shook his head.  "No, I'm n—AGH!"  Sirius had just shoved James—very lightly—in the back, and James had nearly fallen over.

"Not tired my arse," Sirius sniggered.  The rest of the team laughed—or at least _tried_ to laugh, but it was hard when they were so out of breath.

As the team was trudging into the locker rooms, James stopped Lily.  "Why aren't you passing me the quaffle?" he demanded.

"I'm pretending like you're guarded.  Remember last year how it seemed like all three Slytherin chasers were guarding you?"

James sighed exasperatedly.  "But it's _practice_, nobody's guarding me here because there _isn't_ anyone to guard me!"

"Yeah, well you never pass the quaffle once you get it anyway," Lily retorted.

James' eyes narrowed.  "Who's captain here?" he asked, leaning forward.  "Me, or you?"  He went off to the boys' locker room before Lily could say anything else.

Lily just stood there, fuming.  _What a stupid self-centered dumbass prat_, she thought.  He didn't have to keep rubbing in the damn captain thing.  Every time she thought she'd gotten over it, he'd be there to remind her just how angry that made her.

_You wanna see me not passing?  I'll show you what it's like not to be passed to the whole damned game_, Lily thought angrily.  She knew that they probably should've been working as a team, but knowing James he'd be having exactly the same thoughts as she was—and frankly, both played better when they were playing each other than anyone else.

In the boy's locker room, James was fuming, too.  _What right does she have to tell me how to play?  Apparently I do a bloody good job because somehow that got me named captain and not her_.  In the back of his mind he knew that getting angry at Lily was not a good way to get her to go out with him.  But his temper was not exactly tame, and the angry part of him overrode the rational part.

_We'll see just how bloody much you do pass to me,_ James thought, meaning that she'd never have the ball long enough to have the opportunity to pass it to him.  The rational part of his mind was telling him that it was not a good idea to plan on not playing like a team—that was an easy way to slip up and lose the game.  However, the irrational part rationalized that when they were angry at each other and trying to compete, the other team couldn't even get _near_ the quaffle.

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The next morning brought butterflies in James' stomach.  He tried to ignore them, but it was impossible.  He was still angry about the fight with Lily, and was still determined to score the most goals that day.  He really wanted to prove he was a good captain by winning the Quidditch cup, or Lily would make fun of him and would say that she'd have been a better captain.  Fortunately though, he wasn't worried about the new players on the team.  They both proved to be excellent choices, and had trained very well.

Nobody else in his dorm was up, seeing as it was 6:30 in the morning.  He showered quickly and pulled on his regular school robes, thinking what a waste that was because he'd have on Quidditch robes soon anyway.  He went over some strategies  for the game in his mind before glancing at the clock and realizing that it was 7:15.  He went over and jumped on Sirius' bed to get him up.  He needed someone to talk Quidditch with.

"Padfoot!" James said, standing on the foot of Sirius' mattress.

Sirius rolled over and yanked the covers over his head.  "Go 'way," he mumbled.

James jumped up and down a couple of times, but when Sirius didn't respond James got off the bed and went around to lean down close to Sirius' ear as though he were going to whisper.

"WAKE UP YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR THE QUIDDITCH MATCH!" he yelled.

"AAAAH!" Sirius yelped, sitting up abruptly and looking around wildly.  His eyes fell on his alarm clock.

James laughed, slowly backing away.

"Prongs, I am going to murder you!" Sirius exclaimed, jumping out of bed and chasing James around the dormitory.

"What are you two lunatics doing?" Remus asked.  James' screaming had awakened Remus and Peter as well.

"He's going to kill me!" James explained as Sirius said: "He woke me up and now I'm going to kill him!"

"See?" James said.  He was on one side of his bed and Sirius was on the other.

"I'm sure you've awakened the rest of Gryffindor tower as well, with all your yelling," Remus laughed.

Sirius transformed into his huge black dog animagus form and leaped over James' bed, knocking James down.  Sirius then proceeded to lick James' face, getting his glasses all wet.

"DISGUSTING, PADFOOT!  Get the hell OFF me!" James said disgustedly, trying to shove the huge dog off him.

Sirius bounded to the other side of the room and transformed back into a human.

James grabbed a towel that was lying in the dormitory from his shower earlier and proceeded to dry his face and wipe off his glasses.

"I didn't know you liked men!" James jested.

Sirius looked horrified.  "NO!  I don't!  I just wanted to get you back for waking me up!"

"Come on, let's go get breakfast.  You guys have a Quidditch match in two and a half hours," Remus informed them.

That brought back the butterflies that James had momentarily forgotten.  Sirius, Remus and Peter all changed into their robes and the Marauders went down to the great hall for breakfast.

----------

Lily was sitting with Kaye, Mel and the Gryffindor Quidditch team at breakfast when the Marauders entered the hall.  They joined the team and company for food.  Unfortunately, the only people who were actually eating were people not on the Quidditch team.

"Lily, guys, you have to eat something," Kaye said to them.

Lily groaned.  "Can't eat.  Too nervous," she muttered, and the rest of the team nodded in agreement.

The team talked about strategies, boring Kaye, Mel, Remus and Peter into another conversation.  James went over some last minute stuff with them, and though the whole team talked, James and Lily did not actually talk to each other.

Finally, it was time for them to go down to the pitch to get ready for the game.  They all changed, and James gave them a pre-game pep talk.  Then they headed out onto the pitch.  The stands were full, as usual.

Madame Hooch threw the quaffle into the air, and the game began.  Lily caught the quaffle and sped towards the goal posts.  The Ravenclaw keeper was watching Lily, waiting for her to throw.  She passed the quaffle to Alyssa, who was on the other side of the keeper and was not being paid any attention at the present time.  Alyssa threw the quaffle through one of the hoops.  Easy.

"Gryffindor scores!" the announcer kid exclaimed.

The keeper retrieved the quaffle and threw it to one of the Ravenclaw chasers.  James was soon on the chaser's tail, and when the girl tried to throw it to one of her teammates, James intercepted it and turned back around, speeding for the Ravenclaw goal once again.

Just then a bludger came pelting his way.  He ducked and nearly dropped the quaffle, but the distraction had given the Ravenclaw chasers to surround him.

"Pass it, James!" Alyssa yelled at him.  "Lily's open!"

James didn't even glance up.  There was no way he was passing.  Besides, this was a perfect opportunity to show off.  He dived, and when two of the chasers followed him, he pulled out of the dive to soar over them as they nearly hit the ground.  The third chaser he dealt with by looping him.  He was close enough to the goal now.  He threw the quaffle hard.  The keeper dove for it, but he missed by a millimeter and the quaffle soared through a hoop.

"Twenty to zero, in favor of Gryffindor!" James heard the announcer say.

The quaffle was in possession of Ravenclaw.  But not for long.  Lily happened to be right under the Ravenclaw girl that had the quaffle when (lucky for Lily) the quaffle was dropped!  Lily caught it, and went higher on her broom to avoid some of the players.  Just then a bludger came zooming straight towards her out of nowhere.  It hit her in the left shoulder—not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough for her to drop the quaffle out of surprise.  James saw this and he dove, catching the quaffle before it hit the ground and scoring yet another goal.

"Are you okay, Lily?" Alyssa yelled at her.

"Yeah!" Lily yelled back.

"Sorry I couldn't get to that one!" Sirius said to Lily, flying up right next to her.

"No problem!" Lily said, before she zoomed off after the quaffle.

Alyssa intercepted it, and she started flying the other way when she was blocked by two Ravenclaw chasers.  She had to pass.  Unfortunately, James and Lily were flying right next to each other, both beckoning for her to pass it.  She couldn't really see past the Ravenclaw chasers, so she threw it in Lily and James' general direction.  The chasers left her at once, in pursuit of the quaffle.

Lily saw Alyssa throw the quaffle at her and James.  She tried to get in front of James to get it, but he shoved into her side and almost knocked her off her broom in his attempt to catch it.  Lily didn't fall, and tried to reach up and catch the quaffle and at the same time tried to shove James back.  Both lost their balance and the quaffle soared between them and was caught by a Ravenclaw chaser.

"What the hell was that?" James demanded, losing sight of the game for a moment.

Lily turned her broom to face him.  "I was trying to catch the quaffle and _you_ shoved me!"

"You got in my way!" James retorted.

"Ravenclaw scores!  Thirty to ten in favor of Gryffindor," the announcer yelled.

"WHAT!?" James and Lily both exclaimed.

Sirius flew up to them both.  "You guys have to stop competing and start playing like a team!  You're going to cost us the game!" he exclaimed angrily.

"Shit!" James yelled.  He really hadn't been acting like a good captain.

He and Lily both flew out onto the field, ready to play "like a team" when they saw that both seekers had pulled into dives and were racing at a tiny gold spot on the ground.

The game paused momentarily as everyone watched the seekers.  Finally, Jeremy pulled out of the dive just a little bit ahead of the Ravenclaw seeker with something gold clutched in his fist.  (A/N—remember Jeremy is the Gryffindor seeker.)

"Gryffindor wins!" The announcer exclaimed.

The whole Gryffindor team flew down to Jeremy, who was on the ground already.

After they had all changed, the girls went into the boys' locker room so that they could all congratulate each other again.

"Hey guys!  I heard about some masquerade party that's going to be going on on Halloween up in Hogsmeade!  Since Halloween's a Saturday, and we're already in Hogsmeade that day anyway, we should totally go!" Alyssa told them.

Apparently, at this masquerade party, everyone dressed up for Halloween and wore a mask that hid their face.  Nobody was allowed to take theirs off until the end of the night, so nobody knew who anybody else was.  People were discouraged from attending with other people or from telling what their costume was going to be like.

"Where in Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked.

"I heard they do it out on the main street, actually," Alyssa said.  "Don't tell too many people, though, because if half the school didn't come back from Hogsmeade it would look kinda suspicious," Alyssa warned them.

As they were leaving the locker room, Lily turned to Alyssa.  "How'd you find out about that anyway?"

"Oh, my mom is friends with the lady that owns Honeydukes and she actually mentioned it to me in a letter.  My mom's kinda crazy," Alyssa laughed.

Lily laughed.  She resolved to tell Kaye and Mel about the masquerade party, but nobody else.

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end chapter six

A/N—next chapter will be the masquerade party.  I'm sure I'm not the first to use an idea like this (where they're not allowed to show their faces) but… don't flame me about it.

Reviews are adored!


	7. Masks, Flowers, and Armor

Disclaimer. I own nothing. I also realize that I'm not the first one to have an idea like this (the masque thing) and so I'm just saying to anyone who may read this and think that I may have copied: I. DID. NOT. Thank you.

  
  


A/N—I received a review that said that James was a seeker not a chaser, but I think I said this before (sorry if I didn't—then I'm saying it now), I had to make James a chaser so that he could compete with Lily. If he was a seeker there wouldn't even be a point to her being on the Quidditch team—but since this story is about them competing with each other it fit really well to make them both chasers so they could argue over the quaffle and stuff.

CHAPTER SEVEN! Masks, Flowers, and Armor

"I've heard of that before," said Mel when Lily told her and Kaye about the Hogsmeade Masquerade. "Apparently, the reason everyone's supposed to wear a mask is so that if anything erm… happens… then nobody can get in trouble for it."

Kaye laughed. "Do we really want to go?"

Lily nodded. "Yes!" The other two girls looked at her.

"Miss Head Girl wants to break the rules?" Kaye asked skeptically.

"Oh come on," Lily smirked. "We're gonna be wearing masks. Nobody will know we're there."

Mel smiled. "Good point. I'm all for it!" She paused. "But let's get ready together. I don't care what they say about not telling your friends what you're wearing—I don't want to be completely alone with masked freaks in Hogsmeade."

Lily and Kaye laughed.

"So, what are you guys going to go as?" Kaye asked.

"Oh god! Somebody should be the Muggle idea of a witch! I mean with the HUGE pointy hat and the nasty black hair and the green skin!" Mel exclaimed.

"Why don't you? You can make your mask green so you don't actually have to paint your face," Lily suggested.

"Yeah, I think I will," Mel decided. "Then no creeps can hit on me for having a hot costume!"

"What do you mean? Green is all the rage, don't you know?" Kaye joked. "Anyway, I still don't know what I'm going to be."

"Me either," Lily added.

"Lily you should be a princess!" Kaye exclaimed. "No, I don't mean wear frilly pink and stuff," she said at the look on Lily's face. "I mean like from the renaissance or something. You'd be really pretty in it. And we could curl your hair. We could get you one of those masks that only covers the top of your face and—"

"Whoa, Kaye!" Lily exclaimed. But then she grinned. "I really like that idea. And what about you?"

"Kaye should be a fairy!" Mel said suddenly.

"A fairy?" Kaye asked.

"Yeah! You could be like a pixie or something… you know, wings, green dress, all that jazz," Mel explained.

Kaye looked skeptical. "And the mask?"

Lily looked thoughtful. "You know, if you wore green you'd kinda be like a woodland pixie, so if you had a mask like the one you described for me—only it had leaves or something on it…" Lily trailed off.

A smile tugged at the corners of Kaye's mouth. "I kind of like it." Her face fell. "How do we get these costumes?"

Mel bit her lip and Lily's eyebrows furrowed. For a few moments the three sat in silence, contemplating how exactly they were to obtain their costumes.

"Well… Halloween is in two weeks, right? Well, next weekend we could um… sneak out to Hogsmeade—they have a robes shop, I'm sure they have costumes," Mel suggested.

"Ok, but how exactly do we get out of the castle?" Kaye asked.

Again they were puzzled.

Then a conspiratorial glint found it's way into Mel's eyes. "We could ask the Marauders…"

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The next morning at breakfast Sirius stopped Lily before she could sit down. He quickly asked if she had told Mel and Kaye about the Halloween party in Hogsmeade. When she had replied that yes she had, and he had informed her that Peter and Remus had been told as well, they sat down together. Lily and James studiously ignored each other. They were still on bad terms because of the previous day's Quidditch match. The group sat away from other people so they could discuss the Hogsmeade masque.

"So, do you guys know any way to sneak out next weekend so that we can get our costumes? Because we really don't want to leave it to the last day," Kaye said to the Marauders.

Sirius looked at his fellow Marauders. "Hold that thought," he said to Kaye as the Marauders all grouped together and bent down their heads and began to discuss something in very low voices.

"Alright," Sirius said. "We're going to let you girls in on a huge secret. But you cannot tell a soul—or we'll hex you and prank you until you don't even look human," he threatened.  
  
"Gee, thanks," murmured Lily.

Sirius glanced around to make sure that nobody was watching. "There's a statue of a one eyed witch—"

"Oh! I know where that is!" Mel interjected.

"And if you tap it with your wand and say 'dissendium', it opens and there's a passage all the way down to the Honeydukes cellar," Sirius finished.

"So that's how you guys always seem to have stuff from Hogsmeade… and where the hell you go when you sneak out!" Kaye exclaimed.

Sirius just smiled. James and Remus were engaged in a quiet conversation and Peter was eating some scrambled eggs. Lily and Mel were discussing sneaking out.

"What are you going as?" Kaye asked Sirius.

He laughed. "I can't tell you that!"

"Please?" Kaye pleaded.

"What are you going as?" Sirius countered.

"You wouldn't tell me, so I'm not telling you," Kaye retorted.

Sirius smiled. "I have an idea. The first person at the masquerade to guess the other's costume and find them successfully wins… um…" he paused.

"Wins what?"

He smiled mischievously. "A kiss."

Kaye made a face. "Alright, fine. I'll win, and then I just wont take your stupid kiss."

"We'll see," Sirius smirked, shaking Kaye's hand.

-------

That week swept past in a breeze of homework papers and Quidditch practices for Lily. Finally it was Saturday, the day that she, Mel, and Kaye had agreed to sneak out to Hogsmeade.

They snuck out of breakfast and went down the corridor in which the statue was. Lily cast a furtive glance over her shoulder as she tapped the witch statue with her wand and muttered the incantation. Mel and Kaye stood with their backs to her, trying not to look suspicious incase anybody passed them.

"Got it!" Lily said as the statue opened.

They slid through the opening and heard it close behind them. They found themselves in a long dark corridor. Tentatively they felt their way forward until they were sure there was nothing down there. It felt like they walked for a very long time. Finally they encountered a staircase. Mel inquired as to who wished to be the first in line when they climbed it. Mel ended up going first, because Lily and Kaye decided that she was the most daring of the three.

"Damn, there are so many stairs!" Kaye complained after it felt like they'd climbed four hundred stairs.

"Yeah, I wish we could just get to the–OUCH!" Mel yelled as she hit her head on something.

"What?" Lily asked.

Mel felt above her with her hands. "There's a trap door here." She pushed and it opened slightly. "Cool! Sirius didn't lie to us after all!"

She pushed the trap door open enough so that she could see into the Honeydukes cellar.

"Nobody's down here at the moment," she whispered to the other two. "Let's go!"

They climbed out of the trap door and into the cellar of Honeydukes. There were boxes of candy crowding almost every corner.

"You know... we could just take some..." said Kaye, reaching out towards an open box of chocolate frogs.

"No!" hissed Lily, slapping Kaye's outstretched hand. "Let's get into the store before someone catches us down here."

Mel closed the trap door, and the girls ascended the staircase they assumed went up to the actual store part of Honeydukes.

They exited the candy shop and went out into the Hogsmeade streets.

"Look, there's that robes shop! And they do have costumes," Mel pointed out.

They went into the store. A sales witch with frizzy red-brown hair and kind brown eyes came up to them.

"How can I help you?" the sales witch asked them.

Glancing at her friends, Lily spoke. "Um, we're looking for Halloween costumes for–" Lily was about to tell the witch that they were to be attending the Hogsmeade masquerade, but then she thought better of it. "Um, well for Halloween of course," she saved rather lamely.

"Ah, what kind of costumes can I help you find?" the sales witch asked.

"Well, I was going to be a Muggle witch–you know, green skin, frizzy black hair, really exaggerated hat..." Mel said.

"Why don't you help us one at a time?" Kaye suggested when the witch looked at her and Lily. "Lily and I will look around."

Lily nodded in agreement, and the sales witch turned to Mel to help her with her costume.

"Wow! Look at this!" Lily exclaimed, holding a hideous mask that was supposed to be the face of a china doll up to her face.

"That's weird... oh man look at this dress!" Kaye said, pulling a dress half off the rack for Lily to see. It was white in a renaissance style, with a corset and belled sleeves. "You should wear this!"

"Yea," Lily breathed.

Lily and Kaye took it off the rack and went to find Mel to show her.

"Mel! Look at this dress!" Lily said when she had found Mel and the sales witch over by some green masks.

"Wow! Try it on!" Mel squealed.

The sales witch turned. "Do you want a dressing room?"

"Yes, please," Lily said.

Lily got a dressing room, and put the dress on. It fit pretty well, except for the fact that she couldn't lace the corset by herself.

"Kaye!" she screamed. "Help me with this please!"

Kaye opened the dressing room door. She laughed when she saw Lily struggling to lace her own corset. Kaye yanked at the laces until it was tight.

"So? Does it fit?" she asked.

Lily gasped. "I can't really breathe, but otherwise it fits."

Kaye grinned. "I won't lace it so tight for the masque, and it's only for one night. It looks great. Come show Mel."

-----------

Mel was excited when she saw Lily's dress, too. While Mel was trying on a black dress for her Muggle witch costume, the sales lady helped Lily find a white mask and some shoes to go with the dress. It didn't take long–the shoes didn't go with the time period–they were heeled shoes that would be good for dancing, but they were hidden by the dress anyway. The mask Lily wore was simple white, and it covered half her face, tying behind her head. It had small white beads lining the edges of it.

After they found all of Lily's outfit and she went to change out of it. A really pretty green dress made of floaty material was found for Kaye, along with some wings that could actually be magicked to stay on her back without straps or anything. They found some weird strappy shoes to go with the dress.

Finally, they were done after shoes were found for Mel and a mask was found for Kaye.

"Thank you so much for helping us," Lily thanked the sales witch as they were paying for their purchases.

"Any time, dear," the sales witch replied. "Come again!" she yelled after them as they exited the store.

They went back to Honeydukes, swinging their bags in their hands. The girls made it back to Hogwarts without any hassle. It was actually pretty late when they returned–nearly dinner time. When they entered the common room, the Marauders were there.

"So, what did you buy?" Sirius asked, slinking over to Kaye and trying to look inside her bag.

"No way, Black," she warned. "You dirty cheater." She yanked the bag away.

"Ha," he replied.

Remus came over as well, and they all began a conversation. Peter was in a near trance-like state, working hard on some potions assignment. James was sulking over by Peter. He and Lily _still_ weren't exactly on speaking terms from the Quidditch match last week. He knew it was stupid, but he was actually beginning to believe that he would never have her, and that there was a reason they'd been rivals for the past six years.

–--------

"So, are you still not speaking to James?" Mel asked Lily when they were back in their dormitory.

"Yes," Lily said vehemently.

Kaye shook her head. "Is it about the Quidditch match?"

Lily glared. "Yes."

"Lily, it's stupid. The game was a week ago, and you still won. You both played really well. Come on, talk to him," Mel persuaded.

"No," Lily shook her head. "We're better rivals than friends."

"It's not like you've ever actually been his friend. You were just _barely_ friendly to him this year," Kaye added.

Lily's mind went to the early morning conversation she'd had with James a few weeks ago. Had she really nearly been friendly to him then?

"We haven't been able to get along in six years, what makes you think that we will now?" she asked?

Her friends (not exactly having an answer to that) decided to change the subject, and for a long time they discussed the masque and how exited they all were.

But as Lily was falling asleep her thoughts swung back to the conversation about James. She realized at that moment that the only reason they hadn't been friends was because neither of them had been willing to give it the effort. For all she knew, they could be very compatible and end up great friends. _That's not entirely true,_ she thought. _After fifth year, James was more than willing to try to be friends with me–he wanted to go out with me. I was the only one unwilling after that._ That thought made her feel strange in a way she couldn't explain. She attributed it to the fact that she was tired, and shoved it out of her mind for the time being and allowed herself to sleep.

—-------------

Lily and James barely spoke throughout the next week. It wasn't that they were still mad, it was that Lily found it easier when she just wasn't talking to James, and James was too embarrassed to talk to Lily. However, that didn't mean Lily's friends didn't hassle her about still not talking to James.

"You have to talk to him eventually. What about prefects meetings and Quidditch practice?" Mel asked on Friday night, the night before the masque.

"No, I don't. And as for Quidditch practice, he's captain, he can talk all he wants. And prefects meetings? We don't necessarily need to talk during those," Lily replied.

Kaye smirked. "You know, since that Quidditch game, you two haven't really competed at anything. I was especially surprised in Transfiguration when–"

"Why do you guys care so much?" Lily questioned.

Kaye didn't answer, electing to smile in a way that Lily found infuriating. Lily just rolled her eyes.

"So, guys, tomorrow are we just going to stay in Hogsmeade?" Mel brought up.

"Oh, I hadn't really thought about it. Yea, I think that whoever's going is just staying in Hogsmeade," Lily said.

Kaye sat down on her bed. "How do we get our costumes there?"

"We could shrink them," Mel suggested.

Lily grinned. "That's a good idea."

Kaye bounced up and down on her bed. "I'm so excited. It's kind of scary thinking that we won't know anybody there. Well, we might, but we won't know who they are."

"And we probably _won't_ even know most of the people!" Mel exclaimed.

They stayed up late that night, discussing how they thought the masque was going to be.

—---------

The next morning, Lily, Kaye, and Mel went to Hogsmeade with the rest of the students. However, they had shrunken their costumes and a bunch of hair stuff and put it all in their bags. They walked around until it was time for everyone to leave. They hid up near the shrieking shack as their classmates all went back to Hogwarts (well, most of their classmates.) While they were up there they thought they heard movement inside, and Lily thought she saw the silhouette of antlers in one of the windows, but as she glanced around she realized it must've been the shadow from a tree branch.

What the girls didn't know was that there were three illegal animagi (plus one regular human) in the shrieking shack as they were hiding near it.

"What time is it?" Kaye asked as they walked back up the main street.

"Nearly seven," Mel replied, checking her watch.

"What time does the party start?" Kaye said.

Lily shrugged. "Eight, I think, but I'm not certain."

"We shou.ld go–um wait. Where are we going to change and stuff?" Mel inquired.

Kaye grimaced and Lily bit her lip. Oops, they hadn't thought about that.

"Maybe we should go back..." Lily suggested.

"Or we could ask in the robes shop if we can change there? Hopefully the sales lady is working there today and remembers us," Kaye said.

Luckily, the sales witch did remember them, and was kind enough to let them use the dressing rooms to change. They didin't need much makeup since Mel's whole face was covered, and only Lily and Kaye's lips were showing. Kaye put on some pink lipgloss and Lily put on dark red lipstick. Lily had her hair half back with a piece hanging down on one side, and she'd left it wavy. (A/N–like Satine in Moulin Rouge.)

They emerged from the shop a little past eight o'clock. Sure enough, the main street was shut down and people were starting to fill it. There were all sorts of costumes–but the one thing they all had in common was that there was a mask covering each face. Some of the masks covered whole faces, but most were like Lily's and Kaye's and the person's mouth could still be seen.

Mostly, people were dressed elegantly. There were a couple groups of people who looked rather strange, though. Like the girl in the gold sparkly coat and matching hat accompanied by a man dressed as a woman, or the girl dressed like a rag doll with a skinny guy in the pinstriped suit and some other guy dressed as what looked like a green blob.

"Ooh, look at that, it's the phantom of the opera!" Kaye exclaimed, pointing out a tall man.

"Hahaha! Look it's Zorro!" Mel laughed, nodding towards the costume.

Lily saw many costumes that caught her eye. One girl was wearing a beautiful long red dress, and while Lily didn't know what she was supposed to be, the dress was gorgeous. Another man was dressed as a knight, but instead of the cumbersome and annoying armor that one would expect, it seemed he had bewitched it to move smoothly with him, and the armor fit him well, too.

There was a live band, and they were playing music. Around the stage on which the band was playing was sort of a makeshift dance floor. People were dancing already. Lily, Mel, and Kaye made their way over to the dance floor.

The phantom of the opera came over to them and asked Lily to dance. She obliged, and they stepped out onto the floor. Surprisingly, the style of dance was actually ballroom dancing, which made the whole masquerade party seem more like a masque ball that one would read about in a story than anything else.

Lily saw over the phantom's shoulder the knight asking Kaye to dance, and when she and her partner spun in the dance, she saw Mel dancing with a very well dressed pirate.

"Your dress is beautiful," Lily's dance partner said to her.

She smiled up at him. "Thank you."

The song ended a few moments later. The phantom ran a hand through his dark hair, which brought Lily's attention to it. There was something familliar about the way it fell into his eyes...

He bowed (_wow this is formal_, Lily thought, when she glanced up and saw all the guys bowing–and all the ladies curtsying!), and she curtsied in response. She realized that she had ended up right next to Kaye and the knight. Lily smiled at Kaye as they switched partners.

Another dance started, and Lily and the knight spun away from Kaye and the phantom. The knight was actually a very good dancer. Lily was surprised, not many guys she knew were. She was sure that James and the rest of the Marauders were completely horrible.

The knight had on a mask like hers (only without the beads), so she could see his mouth and all of his hair, which was very dark. She could see his eyes too, through the holes in the mask. The sky was darkening, so thousands of candles had been bewitched to float over the street.

He smiled at her. She expected he would give her some generic compliment like the one she'd received from the phantom, so she was surprised when he said, "The sunset is so beautiful... it's the same color as your hair."

"Thank you," she said lamely. She was bad at starting conversations, especially with people she didn't know–and she couldn't even see his face, so it was slightly unnerving. She looked at his eyes. Their exact color was hard to make out, but they were large and long-lashed. Was it just the candle light or did his eyes look really familiar?

She spun and saw Kaye and the phantom laughing. She remembered she'd also thought the phantom was familiar, and decided that it was probably just her being nervous at not knowing who anyone was that she kept thinking people were familiar when she'd probably never seen them before in her life.

"It's kind of unnerving not knowing who anyone is here," the knight commented, glancing around at all the masked faces.

Lily was surprised at the parallel between what he said and what she'd been thinking. She laughed. "Yea, but it's nice in a way, because personality matters more when you can't see someone's face," she said. It sounded really stupid when it left her mouth. She was actually slightly taken aback with herself, she hadn't said two sentences to him before and already she cared what he thought?

He smiled and agreed with her. She got the feeling that he knew more than most people what she was talking about. A strange thought occurred to her. Was he really ugly, or maybe deformed in some way? Well, what did she care. Everyone was wearing a mask, and for all he knew _she_ could be the one who was really ugly or hideously deformed.

She wanted to spend more time talking to the knight, but the song ended. She reluctantly left him and went to find Kaye or Mel to see if they were having fun.

Mel and Kaye were standing together at the edge of the dance floor. Lily saw them and went over to them.

"Having fun?" Lily asked.

"Yeah! That pirate bloke was really interesting," Mel told them.

Kaye looked around. "I have to find Sirius Black before he finds me!"

Lily smirked at her. "Well then don't scream his name, or he _will_ find you first."

"Oh, shut up! Have either of you seen anyone who could be him?"

"Yeah, I've seen a lot of them! Anyone tall and with dark hair could be him," Mel remarked.

"Gee, thanks!" Kaye said sarcastically.

"So, only dance with the tall dark haired ones," Lily suggested.

"Well, I danced with that knight, and that phantom... but so did you, Lily. Did either of them seem like they could be... him?" Kaye inquired.

Lily laughed. "No, they were actually _polite_ to me. I don't think I've seen any of the Marauders, thank god."

"Ah, but you can't be sure. You could've danced with James and wouldn't have even known it!" Mel said slyly.

"I highly doubt that. Like I said, the two men I danced with were actually polite to me," Lily repeated. "Besides, I think I would've recognized his voice."

Mel sniggered. "The only time you've ever associated with James you two have been arguing, so therefore you only know the sound of his voice when he's yelling or angry."

"Shut up! I don't think there's that much difference! And I _don't_ want to talk about Potter," Lily said forcefully, effectively ending that subject.

"Hey, look at that over there. It's a musketeer or something. That could be Black," Mel suggested to Kaye.

"He's a bit too short, and his hair isn't dark enough," Kaye said.

"What about that bloke over there? He's tall and has dark hair," Lily said, pointing at another man and trying to hide a snicker.

"He's dressed like a woman and his hair is poufy and curly!" Kaye exclaimed!

Lily and Mel laughed hard. They spent a few minutes trying to figure out which male was Sirius until the song that was playing ended and Zorro came up to Lily to ask her to dance. Kaye went with the musketeer, and Mel went with the tall skinny guy in the pinstriped suit.

Zorro wasn't much taller than Lily, and he had blonde hair, so that ruled out the possibility that he could be Sirius _or_ James.

In this particular dance, partners were changed often. Lily was spun into the arms of the pirate for a few seconds before being returned to Zorro. She danced with Zorro for a few more seconds until everyone turned and got a new partner. Now Lily was with the musketeer. He was tall, but not _that_ tall, so Lily didn't think he could've been James or Sirius either.

She was then spun into the arms of a pharaoh, and since he had something wrapped around his head _and_ had a mask on, she was slightly uncomfortable, because she only had height to give her clues to his identity, and he was definitely tall enough to be James or Sirius. She was relieved when she was back with the musketeer. But not for long.

Her next partner was the guy Mel had been with earlier, the tall skinny guy in the pinstriped suit. Lily noticed he had a bat or something on as his bow tie. It was strange. She was losing interest in this dance. The only person who could've been Sirius or James was that pharaoh guy, and now she couldn't even see him. But then she was spun into the knights arms. Unfortunately she only had time to merely smile before she returned to her previous partner.

She was bored now... the dance had only been going on for about two minutes, but Lily was never with one person long enough to actually talk to them! It was infuriating! There was no way she could even pry for long enough to find out who exactly she was dancing with. _Wait,_ she thought suddenly. _Wouldn't Potter be wearing glasses?_ Maybe. She wasn't paying attention to the next person she got as partner.

"So, we meet again," he said, and she looked up and saw the knight again. He was grinning.

"Finally, somebody I... sort of... know," Lily said.

His smile grew. "I know what you mean. This dance changes so fast!" he exclaimed.

"Yea, like right now!" Lily said as she went temporarily to the arms of the green blob thing.

Back to the knight. They were about to change partners again. "Look for me after," he said to her as they separated. She didn't even have time to nod her head or anything.

She didn't find Mel or Kaye after the dance. It was just as well because she was looking for that knight. She pushed past the transvestite and wove through some Lord of the Rings characters. Where did he go? Was he playing a trick? Something lightly touched her shoulder. She turned, expecting to just have been bumped into accidentally. It was the knight.

"Hey," he said.

——-------

James hadn't been expecting to meet a girl at the masque. He had actually been planning to find Lily. But he'd danced with this girl, and he'd felt an instant connection to her. Maybe it was because she reminded him of Lily... her hair was long and red, but it was wavy whereas Lily always wore hers straight. But there was no way this girl acutally _was_ Lily.

James was proud of the genius of his costume. He'd bewitched the mask so that he didn't need his glasses (that had taken a long time), and he'd also bewitched his armor so that it wasn't uncomfortable or cumbersome.

His mind wasn't completely off Lily when he went to meet the girl in the white dress (he didn't actually _want_ it off Lily), but he was hoping maybe to make a new friend–maybe someone who could convince Lily that he wasn't all bad.

He had told her to look for him after the previous dance. He spotted her and went over and touched her shoulder.

"Hey," he greeted, smiling.

She smiled. He wondered what she looked like with her mask off. Right now all he could see of her was her mouth... and her eyes.

"Hey," she replied.

They walked to the edge of the now huge party and sat down on a nearby bench.

"Ouch," she said, pulling at the back of her dress.

"What?" he asked.

She grimaced. "Corset. It went with the dress. It's not laced very tightly but it's still hard to breathe," she explained.

"I read somewhere that when ladies used to wear corsets every day it rearranged their insides or something," he said, hoping she wouldn't think it was really gross.

"Yeah, I heard something like that, too. Like their stomachs would end up way up in their rib cages or something..." she replied.  
  
He smiled. The girl bent down and picked a flower. James was surprised there even were still flowers blooming. She put it behind her ear in her hair.

The guy dressed as a pharaoh passed them. The girl looked at the pharaoh strangely.

"What?" James asked.

"His head's wrapped in that cloth thing, _and_ he has a mask on. You can't even use his hair color to try to figure out who he is."

"Yeah, and his mask covers his whole face... that's a little creepy," James laughed.

--------—--

The knight laughed. Lily smiled, too. She'd just pointed out the pharaoh and told the knight why she didn't like the costume. The knight had a really musical laugh. It was wonderful. But she found herself wondering what he looked like...

A breeze blew by and Lily shivered. It hadn't been an especially cold night, but now it was getting late and the night air was cold.

"Oh are you cold?" the knight asked, noticing her shiver. "I wish I had a jacket to give you or something," he said. "I don't think armor would help much."

She laughed. "It's all right."

"A couple of my friends are wearing jackets–I could steal one from one of them!" he exclaimed.

Lily laughed again. "Forget it, really. I'm fine."

——–--------

Meanwhile, Kaye had stopped dancing and was looking around for anyone who looked like Sirius. She skirted the dance floor, watching for people who moved like Quidditch players (she'd noticed that guys that played Quidditch seemed more graceful.) Then she spotted the man dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh. Since his hair color wasn't visible, and he was tall and muscularly built, Kaye thought that maybe it could be Sirius. She was just debating how to find out when he approached her and held out his hand to ask her to dance.

She took it, and he led her onto the dance floor. He was graceful enough, but he hadn't spoken to her yet so there was no way she could be sure.

"Having fun?" she asked lightly.

"Yes, this is awesome," he said with an American accent. Well that ruled him out, unless Sirius had learned to speak with a perfect American accent _just_ to fool her. But this guys voice was a little higher than Sirius' anyway.

As she danced, Kaye took every opportunity she could (without seeming rude) to glance around the dance floor. The transvestite was graceful, and he was tall enough. Kaye didn't think Sirius would dress up as a transvestite though, and she was relieved to see that the only thing making the transvestite so tall were six inch heels. There was no way she could see who was inside that green blob costume. The phantom was pretty graceful too, but Kaye doubted that Sirius even knew what the Phantom of the Opera was.

Where was that knight? He was tall, dark haired, and he moved like a Quidditch player. Kaye didn't want to seem rude to the pharaoh, so she waited until the dance was over to really search for the knight.

She walked around looking for him when she suddenly stopped. Sitting on a bench a ways away and out of the way from the rest of the party was Lily with the knight. They were talking and laughing, it looked like. Kaye watched for a second–maybe Lily had discovered Sirius. The knight ran a hand through his hair. _That's exactly how James does that_, Kaye thought. She glanced at Lily to see if she had noticed. She hadn't. Typical Lily. But now that she thought about it, that knight did remind her of James...

Whatever, she was probably just seeing things. She really needed to find Sirius before he found her. There was no way she was kissing him, and the only way to ensure that she didn't have to was to _find him already_.

She went back to the dance floor to see if she could find Mel. Maybe Mel had seen something. Instead, the phantom came up to her and asked her to dance. She was about to give up on Sirius anyway. What he hell. She went out onto the dance floor with the phantom.

They started to dance, and as they danced, he bent his head down and whispered something in her ear.

"Hello, Kaye."

–-----—--------

Lily had been talking to that knight for what felt like hours. It was great–she hadn't expected to make a friend at this crazy masquerade.

However, as much as she didn't want to leave, things were getting crazy. The amount of people who were crowded on the street seemed to have doubled, and most of them were acting pretty drunk, though Lily hadn't seen any alcohol brought in.

"We should meet sometime... without the masks..." the knight suggested. "It might not be the best time to take them off here...."

Lily smiled. "That would be great. Um... where... when?" she asked cautiously. She didn't want to reveal to him that she was a Hogwarts student if he ended up being in his late twenties or something.

"How about at the three broomsticks next weekend? Um... Saturday at eight?" he asked.

She grinned. "Alright."

Just then, a slight gust of wind blew her flower out of her hair. She reached for it on the ground, but the knight picked it up first.

"Can I have this?" he asked.

Lily laughed. "Sure."

—------—--------

Kaye glared at the phantom that was Sirius.

"Please do not tell me that you've been saying that to every single girl you've danced with all night?" she pleaded.

"I haven't!" he said indignantly.

"Tell me how you did it," she commanded.

Sirius smiled. _Curse him_, she thought as he spoke, "I don't want to give away my secret."

"If you cheated in any way I _will_ kill you, I promise," she threatened.

He raised his eyebrows (even though she couldn't see it). "Alright! I figured out which one was Lily–really you can't miss her hair anywhere–and then I saw her talking to you and that witch that has to be Mel. Since you're blonde and Mel is a brunette..." he trailed off.

"Oh," Kaye muttered. Then she had an idea. "So will you tell me what the other Marauders are wearing?"

"No. Figure it out! You get one guess–if you guess right, then _maybe_ I'll tell you the other two," he bargained with her.

"James is the knight–and before you say something stupid like 'which knight', there's only one knight here."

Sirius laughed. "Yes, James is a knight. If you want I'll tell you what Remus and Peter are."

"No, I don't care what they're dressed up as–well wait, they're not the green blob, are they?"

Sirius laughed harder. "No, and for the record they're not the transvestite either."

"Alright. Then I have another question. Do you want Lily and James to get together?" she inquired.

Sirius nodded. "Yes I–"

"Then come look at this." Kaye led him off the dance floor and to a spot where they could see the bench that Lily and James sat on, but they couldn't be seen by either.

"Ok, there's no way that thickhead got Lily to talk to him if she actually _knew_ who he was. And he's about to give up on her, so I don't think he knows who she is either," Sirius reasoned.

Kaye's eyes widened. "Wait! Did you just say he's giving up on her!?"

Sirius nodded unhappily. "Yes. Oh no, he's still in love with her," he said at a look on Kaye's face, "but he's still giving up."

"But look at that. They're so perfect for each other. They just refuse to take a chance with it!" Kaye exclaimed, slightly angry.

"So, let's not tell them who they spent the whole night talking to, let's show them..." Sirius said.

Kaye grinned. "What did you have in mind...?" She really wanted Lily and James to just go out already, and if it meant teaming up with Sirius then she'd do it. She'd actually forgotten all about that stupid kiss–but he hadn't.

–----------

Lily felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. It was Kaye.

"Hey!" she said.

"Hey yourself!" she replied. "You know, I hate to ruin your fun, but it's almost midnight, and some of those drunk blokes over there are starting to scare me."

Lily glanced at the packed street. "You're right. Um, see you later," she said to the knight.

As they were walking away, Kaye had to make sure Lily hadn't figured out who any of the other Marauders were (even though Kay herself only knew who James and Sirius had been.)

"So did you find out any of the Marauders?" she asked cautiously.

"No! I didn't even see many potentials. Did you find Sirius?" Lily asked.

"Actually, he found me," Kaye said, scrunching her nose. 

"How?" Lily asked.

"Lucky guess," she said bitterly (even though it was a lie.)

Lily laughed. They met up with Mel, grabbed their bags from a very good hiding place (they hadn't wanted to carry them around, so they'd shrunk them and put them in an inconspicuous place) and went back to Hogwarts via the Honeydukes cellar (it was still open because of the masque.) They chatted happily about the masquerade as they were walking back. Lily thought back on the knight. _Oh no! I didn't even get his name!_ That was not something that they had to wait to reveal. Unless he went to Hogwarts...

As Lily lay in her bed, nearly asleep, she kept wondering what that knight looked like without his mask on...

end chapter seven

A/N–Wow, that was really long! I wasn't planning on making it that long. I knew it was going to be longer because of the masque thing, but... not this long. Hope you enjoyed it!

Review please and I'll love you forever :-D


	8. He loves her, he loves her not

Disclaimer: If I was JK Rowling, I would not be writing fanfictions, I'd be writing book 6. Therefore, I don't own any of this and I also have not committed identity theft. Thanks for playing, try again.

A/N—from the last chapter: the lord of the rings characters were not dressed from the movie, they had just made up their own costumes—because the movie would not have been around yet when Lily and James were alive.

**CHAPTER EIGHT** He loves her, he loves her not 

Lily woke up late (by her standards, which meant 8:00) on Sunday morning. Mel and Kaye were still asleep. She considered waking them up, but wasn't really in the mood to be evil. She grabbed a book off her bedside table and read for about an hour. Becoming bored with just reading, she decided that it was late enough to awaken Mel and Kaye.

She got up and went over to Kaye's bed. "Kaye," Lily whispered, lightly shaking her. "Kaye," she said a bit louder. All Kaye did was mutter and flip over.

Lily rolled her eyes. She was about to go attempt to awaken Mel when she had an idea.

"Kaye!" she said quite loudly. "Sirius is here—he's demanding that kiss!"

"WHAT? TELL THE BASTARD TO GO THE FUCK AWAY!" Kaye shrieked, sitting up.

Lily shook her head. "Language."

Kaye scowled at her.

"Who's fucking bastards?" Mel asked groggily, woken up by Kaye's screaming.

Lily and Kaye burst into laughter at this. Mel gave them a questioning look. Lily shook her head in a way that said 'never mind'.

"Lily! It's nine o'clock! It's still early!" Mel exclaimed when she was fully awake and had had a good look at the clock.

"No… it's late," Lily countered.

"Whatever, it's morning. Should we get breakfast?" Kaye asked.

Lily grinned evilly. "Sirius might be there… and you know what you owe Sirius," she tormented Kaye.

"AAH NO! Let's not have breakfast. I'm not hungry anyway," Kaye said hastily.

Mel grinned as well. "Ah yes, that little matter of the kiss."

"I… I'll get out of it!" Kaye exclaimed desperately.

Lily shrugged. "What's the big deal? It's just a kiss."

"Yea, but it's with SIRIUS!" Kaye moaned.

Mel raised one eyebrow. "He doesn't have cooties."

Lily laughed. "The way you're going on about it I'd say you were secretly embarrassed because you actually _like_ him."

"HELL NO!" Kaye yelled.

Lily shrugged. "I don't know… you're complaining so much… really, it's not like you have to kiss Snape. What's so bad about Sirius, anyway?"

"Well, he… um… I think that… He's so—he's just…" Kaye stumbled and stammered.

Lily pointed at her. "AHA! You can't think of anything!"

Kaye scowled. "Why are you tormenting me about it?"

"Because you torment me about James!" Lily said. Mel laughed. "You do, too!" Lily accused Mel.

"But now I have someone new to torment you about! That knight!" Mel said triumphantly.

"I don't know his name and I've never seen his face," Lily pointed out.

"So? It's looooooooove at first… conversation!" Mel fake-swooned.

"James will be _so_ jealous," Kaye exclaimed (laughing inwardly at the fact that both Lily and James would kill each other when they found out who exactly they'd been talking to at the masque.)

Lily frowned. "James shouldn't care one way or another. Remember, I'm not speaking to him anyway."

"Oh, you yearn to speak to him, just as he pines to hear your sweet voice," Mel teased.

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Mel, lay off the romance novels, will you?"

"What romance novels?" Mel asked innocently… a little _too_ innocently…

"THOSE!" Kaye screamed, diving off her bed and under Mel's and yanking out a box of romance novels.

"HEY!" Mel screamed, grabbing her pillow and whacking Kaye on the head.

"OW!" Kaye snatched up her pillow and hit Mel in retaliation.

Lily laughed. Mel turned on her. "It's your fault for bringing them up!" she yelled, as Lily grabbed her pillow and tried to use it as a shield.

They pillow-fought for a while, after which they talked some more about the masque. Before they knew it, it was lunchtime.

"I'm hungry," Kaye whined.

"Yea, me too," Mel agreed.

Lily got up from her bed. "I'm going to change, we should go to lunch."

Kaye and Mel agreed, and the three were soon in the Great Hall for lunch.

As they were helping themselves to food, the Marauders walked in and sat down with them.

"So, that was completely awesome last night, right?" Sirius asked them.

"Yea," Lily said. She glanced at James. She was actually surprised how long they'd avoided talking to each other. They even managed it at Quidditch practice. But there was a game next weekend against Slytherin (she figured it would be done before her date with the knight), and she knew that she and James would have to talk then.

"What did you guys go as?" Peter asked the girls.

"NO!" Sirius and Kaye exclaimed at the same time.

The rest of the group looked at them.

"Um…" Kaye started. "Um… it's not fun if we just tell you… do you have any guesses?" she stalled.

"I don't wanna guess, that's dumb," Peter mumbled.

Sirius gave Kaye a wide-eyed look that said 'is that the best you could come up with?' Kaye gave him a look back that said 'it's not like you helped me!' Sirius rolled his eyes and went back to his food.

Lily wondered what that was about. _Why didn't they want us all to say what we'd dressed up as?_ Then she figured it was just something to do with the whole bet that Kaye and Sirius had—and the fact that Kaye still owed Sirius a kiss.

For a moment, the conversation stopped. Sirius didn't want to give anyone time to think about that near-disaster situation, so he said the first thing he could think of.

"Kaye, you still owe me a kiss."

She looked up, her fork half way to her mouth. She pointedly glanced at him, at the fork, and put the fork back down on her plate, coughing. Then she made a face.

"Ok," she sighed. "Let's get it over with."

Sirius smiled and put up a hand. "No, not right now… I'm not in the mood for kissing. I'll tell you when I want it."

Kaye crossed her arms. "Oh? And why do you get to choose?"

"I won," he stated simply.

Kaye narrowed her eyes as she went back to her food.

------------

"James, you have to talk to her sometime," Sirius said to James later that day.

"Padfoot… I can't. She hates me, it's pointless," James explained. The Marauders were sitting in the boy's dormitory.

Sirius tried again. "But you—"

"Sirius, I think you should drop it," Remus warned him, seeing the look on James' face.

"Yea, fine, ok," Sirius reluctantly consented. Then, "Hey! Next Saturday night is a full moon!"

"Don't you have a game with Slytherin on Saturday?" Remus asked.

"Yeah," James said. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. _SHIT!_ He thought. _I can't meet with that girl! I've gotta owl her and reschedule. But how do I find her… oh! That flower!_

"Um, Prongs?" Sirius asked at James' wide-eyed expression.

"Hold on—I forgot about something!" He grabbed the flower (which had been sitting on his bedside table,) and his bag and ran out of the dormitory.

When he got to the door to the owlry, he hastily scribbled a note to the girl. At first he wasn't sure if she'd know who it was because they'd never exchanged names, but he just scribbled what he'd been at the masque and they'd met and talked there and planned to meet up. He then wrote down Remus' most used excuse: that his mother was sick and he had to go see her on the weekend. He closed with could they please postpone meeting until the next weekend?

He went to his owl, tied the letter to its leg, and then showed it the flower, hoping that it would be able to find the person by the scent or something… He wasn't sure if it would even work, but the owl didn't protest or anything, so he sent it off.

----------

Lily was in the common room doing potions homework with Kaye and Mel when a beautiful owl scratched at one of the windows. The few people in the common room turned to look at it until finally Kaye got up and let it in. The owl flew over to Lily and stuck out its leg. Lily untied the message and expected the owl to fly off, but it stayed.

"What's that?" Mel asked as Lily scanned the message.

"Aw, I was supposed to meet that knight from the masque next Saturday, but his mother's sick, and he has to go visit her," she said. The owl pecked at her hand. "Ow!" Lily exclaimed.

"I think you're supposed to reply," Kaye said.

Lily grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote down a note that said it was fine—they could do it the next Saturday at the same time and place. She said also that she hoped his mother got better soon.

As soon as the owl was out of the window she mentally kicked herself for forgetting to tell him her name and for not asking his. _Oh well,_ she thought, _I'll find out some time_.

----------

The next night, there was Quidditch practice. Lily and James still managed not to talk to each other—James only talking to her when he was addressing the whole team. Practice went well—but they were all training hard because of the game against Slytherin.

They were finishing up and heading to the locker rooms when James finally talked to Lily.

"Hey, Evans! Can you wait a sec?" he yelled across part of the pitch at her.

She was surprised that he'd finally talked to her. "Um, sure," she yelled back, and waited for him to catch up to her.

He ran over to her. There was an uncomfortable silence for a second. Finally, James spoke.

"I'm sorry about the game—and I'm sorry that it took so long for me to apologize…" he said nervously.

Lily smiled slightly and looked at him. "Thanks. I'm sorry too, it was as much my fault as it was yours."

He smiled. "No problem."

Just then Sirius stuck his head out of the locker room and yelled "JAMES!"

James rolled his eyes. "I wonder what he wants now," James muttered to Lily before running over to the boy's locker room.

As she watched him run away a thought occurred to her. _James and I just spoke without arguing or anything. He just apologized to me! On his own!_ She thought that maybe Remus had made him—but if Remus really had forced James to apologize James would've done it in front of Remus, and he would've done it days ago.

Amazing.

----------

The next day at breakfast the Marauders sat with Lily Kaye and Mel again. Sirius was across from Kaye, and Lily was next to her.

"Sirius, when are you going to stop torturing me and let me get that bloody kiss over with so that I can move on with my life?" Kaye demanded.

Sirius shrugged, pouring syrup onto his pancakes. "When I feel like it. It's fun to have something to hold over your head," he commented nonchalantly as James walked in late.

James sat down beside Sirius, which meant he was across from Lily.

"Hi," he said quietly to her.

She was surprised. "Hi," she said back.

Kaye (momentarily forgetting that she'd like to strangle Sirius,) glanced across the table at Sirius and gave him a questioning look.

Sirius winked in response and mouthed 'tell you later'.

James and Lily didn't talk through the rest of breakfast, but more than once Sirius caught James sneaking glances at Lily. He had a feeling that James wasn't quite ready to give up on Lily.

----------

They had Transfiguration after breakfast, so they all walked together to the class.

Kaye yanked Sirius back for a minute when everyone else was very engaged in a conversation about Quidditch.

"Okay, tell me when they became friends," Kaye demanded, leaving out names incase someone heard them.

"They're not exactly friends. He apologized to her after practice yesterday," Sirius whispered.

"And she didn't smack him?" Kaye asked.

Sirius shook his head. "No, I was watching and listening from the locker rooms. It was actually cute," he said. "AAA! I just said something was _cute_! What's happening to me!?!?" he exclaimed a little too loudly.

"What's cute?" Mel asked, turning around to Kaye and Sirius.

Sirius grimaced. "Um…"

"A picture of my cat," Kaye covered quickly.

"Oh," Mel said.

James smirked and ruffled Sirius' hair. "Awww, I thought doggies didn't like little kitties!"

Sirius glared. "Shut up."

When James was turned around Sirius looked at Kaye and raised his eyebrows, still slightly glaring.

She shrugged, indicating it was the best she could come up with.

----------

Later that night the Marauders were again sitting in their dormitory discussing what they were planning to do that Saturday night during the full moon.

"We could… um…." Peter tried. "There's nothing left to do! We've done everything!"

Sirius laughed. "That's not true, we could… we could…"

"HA! You can't think of anything either! You were wrong!" James yelled triumphantly.

"Kiss my ass!" Sirius yelled in response.

James raised his eyebrows. "Speaking of kisses…"

"Oh no… on no…" Sirius said, putting his hands up in defense.

"Yea, Sirius… when _are_ you going to get that kiss from Kaye?" Remus asked.

"And… why'd you make the stake a kiss anyway?" James questioned.

Sirius laughed nervously. "Um… because I knew it would piss her off—and postponing it is pissing her off, too."

"No… you want a kiss from her," James said.

Remus nodded. "And you're not taking it yet because it gives you an excuse to talk to her."

"No! That's not… it's just… no!" Sirius protested.

"It is," James, Remus, and Peter exclaimed at once.

"You're ganging up on me!" Sirius whined.

"Admit it, you like her," James commanded.

Sirius shook his head. "Not until you admit that you're head over heels for Lily!"

"Come on, I don't like her _that_ much!" James defended himself.

Sirius smiled. "Yes you do!"

"And you like Kaye!" James said.

"No I…" Sirius stopped. He suddenly had an idea… "I'm not the one in denial here!"

"In denial about _what_?" James demanded.

Sirius smirked. "About your feelings for a certain girl."

James scoffed. "I'm not in denial!"

"You're in love with her," Sirius teased.

"No! I'm not! But you like Kaye, so _you're_ the one in denial!" James responded.

"I'm not admitting it until you do," Sirius smirked.

"I'm not admitting anything to you losers," James growled, clearly getting angry (at nothing).

"Come on James…" Sirius prompted.

"Yea, James…" Peter added.

"You know you like her a lot more than you let on…" Remus put in.

"FINE! ALL RIGHT? I LOVE HER! THERE ARE YOU—" James yelled. As soon as the words were out of his mouth his eyes widened and his hands went up to clamp over his mouth. "SHIT!" He exclaimed, before trying to cover. "I mean… I only said that to make you shut up… I'm not _really_…"

Sirius was laughing. "I knew it I knew it I knew it!" he crowed triumphantly.

"Aaaagh," James moaned, burying his face in his pillow.

"James, that's not fair to that princess," Sirius said, getting another wacky idea. He wanted to know what James thought of Lily when James didn't know it was actually Lily.

"What fucking princess?" James asked, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Aww… you've already forgotten! The girl you met at the masque!" Remus informed him.

James rolled his eyes—though nobody could see it seeing as he was still laying face first in his bed. "She… she…" he began, but he realized he didn't know what he thought about that girl.

He hadn't even seen her face, and he'd only talked to her for an hour or so, and he didn't feel anything like the way he felt for Lily, but he felt something… something he couldn't name… she was just…

He figured it would all sort itself out when he met her.

"I don't know—I've never seen her face and I've barely talked to her. I'll tell you prats after I've met her," James muttered, lifting his head a bit from the pillow so they could hear him.

Sirius grinned. _Oh, but you already have,_ he thought.

James was now lost in thought, and the other three decided not to bother him—since he wasn't sitting up from his bed.

----------

_Do I really love her?_ James wondered later that night as he was falling asleep. But he knew it was true. Sure it had started as just a stupid crush in fifth year, but… he didn't even know when it changed. That was barely even a crush, he'd just milked it for all it was worth and used it mercilessly to his own advantage. And then… the beginning of seventh year their battle had all just seemed so stupid… that is, until they played that damned Quidditch game.

_But… she hates me_, he said to himself. But… she hadn't been cold or argumentative when he'd apologized to her about the Quidditch game.

He had to figure out a way to end this stupid competition they'd been engaged in since first year. There was no way they could be friends if they were constantly trying to beat each other. He had to prove that he could be more than just an adversary….

-----end chapter eight!------

A/N—I tried to make it long (didn't really work though)… review and I'll write faster and I'll make chapter nine longer than this one was!


	9. Knocked Down

Disclaimer: You really should know by now that I don't own anything. AND KATHY THE GREAT HELPED ME WITH PART OF THIS. THANK YOU KATHY.

A/N—does Hogwarts have a bell? I forget… I don't know… well it does now. **P.S. Listen to the song 'One Wild Night' by Bon Jovi while the Quidditch game is going on**, if only because that's what I listened to when I wrote it.

**CHAPTER NINE** Knocked Down

James was caught up in his thoughts through out the next couple of days. He was confused and feeling newly self-conscious. It felt like every time he was around Lily he turned into a huge klutz or ended up embarrassing himself in some way. He tried telling himself that nothing had changed—but it didn't work. Something _had_ changed—he'd realized that he was in _love_ with Lily whereas before he'd thought it just a crush.

On Friday James had awakened late and therefore was late to breakfast, which meant that his friends (being the awesome people that they were) left before he was done eating. Thank goodness he hadn't seen Lily. He'd actually taken to nearly avoiding her all together because he didn't want to make a complete and total fool of himself in front of her.

He wolfed down his food and started the long walk from the great hall to the dungeons for potions. He was trying to go fast, and once again got caught up in his thoughts (of Lily), so he wasn't exactly paying attention to where he was going… until he ran into somebody. He knocked the books out of the person's arms, and both of them fell to the ground, books and parchment scattering around the floor of the corridor. James looked up at the person. _Oh shit. _Lily.

"Oh god I'm sorry," he gasped, jumping up and extending a hand to help her up. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

"Thanks," she said.

He smiled. But the smile was gone a second later because he had realized her books were all over the floor. He swiftly bent down and started to pick them up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to run into you. I wasn't paying attention and I just…" he rambled. "I'm sorry…" he repeated. _Damn, I sound so stupid!_ He thought.

"It's ok, really," Lily replied, bending down to help him pick up her books.

James grabbed the last book on the ground as Lily picked up the last of the stray pieces of parchment. They tried to stand up at the same time and ended up hitting their heads together and ending up back on the floor.

"Ow," both muttered simultaneously.

James bit his bottom lip and looked up at her with an apologetic look in his eyes, just as she was looking at him. Suddenly James was acutely aware of the fact that their faces were merely inches apart. He inhaled sharply and could feel heat rising in his face which could only mean he was blushing.

"Sorry," Lily said.

"Me too," James muttered, standing up quickly and running his free hand through his hair. Lily stood up as well, and he handed her the books he'd picked up.

There was an uncomfortable silence. James suddenly found the floor extremely fascinating.

"Thanks for helping pick up my stuff," Lily said.

James looked up. "But I ran into you in the first place, it was the least I could do."

Lily smiled. She opened her mouth to say something, but the bell cut her off.

"Shit! We're supposed to be in potions!" James exclaimed, grabbing her hand and starting to run down the hall. "Come on!"

Lily didn't drop his hand, and ran with him. They arrived panting at the dungeons a few moments later. James let go of her hand as they walked into the dungeon. He hadn't even been thinking about it when he'd grabbed it. He'd just followed his instincts…

The professor yelled at them about being late—but thankfully they didn't receive detentions.

Lily sat down with Kaye and Mel as the professor turned back to the chalkboard.

"What was that?" Kaye asked.

Lily opened her book. "What was what?"

"_That_. You came in late with _James Potter_," Kaye pointed out.

Mel nodded. "And your face is flushed."

"Mel, you need to stop reading those romance novels. We were late because he ran into me and my books fell all over the place. And my face is flushed because we ran here," Lily explained.

"Stop. Rewind. He ran into you?" Kaye interrogated.

Lily nodded. "Yea, he apologized a lot for it, too."

"But, he ran into you, and you didn't kill him for it?" Kaye questioned.

"No…" Lily said, not exactly understanding what Kaye was getting at.

Kaye raised her eyebrows. "You hate him."

"I don't _hate_ him…. Besides that he did apologize a lot." Lily sighed at the look Kaye was giving her. "I don't know how I feel about him," Lily admitted. "We've been opponents for so long, it's weird to see him as a human being."

Kaye made an excited high-pitched noise which caused the professor to turn around and glare at her (they'd been very quiet up until then).

"Does that mean no more competing? Does that mean you can be friends? Does that mean that you'll go out? He likes you, you know," Mel said, all of it very fast.

Lily raised her eyebrows. "How could I give up competing with him? I like winning! And just because I didn't murder him doesn't mean that I'll ever actually go out with him!" Lily hissed in response. Lily didn't see, but Kaye's mouth twitched momentarily into a small smug smile.

The three turned back towards the chalkboard, thinking they should actually be taking notes.

Meanwhile, at the Marauder's table, a similar conversation was occurring.

"So Prongs," Sirius whispered. "You finally got Lily to snog you!"

James laughed quietly. "No, sorry Padfoot."

"What did happen? Why did you guys come in _late_ together?" Remus asked.

"I knocked into her and her books fell so we picked them up. And then we ran because we were already late."

"At least you ran into her," Peter said.

"Didn't she kill you for running into her?" Sirius asked.

James shook his head. "Surprisingly no."

"Wow," Remus said.

"Maybe she'll go out with you!" Sirius suggested.

James laughed harder this time—earning him a nasty glare from the professor (but surprisingly no detention.) "Yea right. Even if she let me pick up her books, that doesn't mean she'd go out with me. The only thing she'll ever think of me as is an adversary. I don't even think she thinks of me as a real human."

_She does, she just doesn't know she does_, Sirius thought.

"You give up too easily. Whatever you did that time worked," Remus advised.

"You mean I should keep knocking her books onto the floor?" James questioned sarcastically.

Remus shook his head. "No. I think…. You weren't competing with each other. The only way to keep her from seeing you as an adversary is to stop _being_ an adversary."

James contemplated that for a moment. It made sense. It also explained his increasing reluctance (minus the Quidditch game) to compete with Lily. Quidditch. That reminded him of the game against Slytherin the next day, and for the rest of the class his thoughts switched between Quidditch strategies and just how close he'd been to Lily in the corridor.

-----------------------

James didn't sleep well that night. He kept having dreams about the Quidditch game. Lily fell off her broom. They lost to Slytherin. He fell off his broom and lost the game for the team. Everyone kept scoring in the Slytherin goal. There were a thousand bludgers flying after him. It was all jumbled and confusing, but every dream he had was bad.

He actually yelled and rapidly sat up when Sirius woke him up.

"Woah!" Sirius yelled back, jumping backwards from James' bed.

"Padfoot!" James exclaimed. "Sorry, I was… forget it. You're up? What time is it?"

"Seven," Sirius said. "I was surprised you weren't up… so I decided to wake you up. Turns out that was a bad idea."

"I'm so nervous about the game," James admitted.

"No kidding," Remus muttered, waking up as well. "You were tossing around all night."

"Kept me awake," Peter said, who'd been awakened by James' yell.

James cringed. "Sorry."

"Get out of bed!" Sirius commanded James. "We've gotta go kick some Slytherin ass!"

----------

Two hours later the Gryffindor team was standing down on the field, mirroring the glares they were receiving from the Slytherin team. The stands were packed full of students—three quarters of which were cheering for the Gryffindors.

The Quaffle was thrown up into the air as fourteen brooms left the ground. The first goal proved that it was going to be a fierce game.

James snatched the quaffle out of the air and soared towards the Slytherin goal posts. Just then, a Slytherin beater smacked a bludger towards James from less than twenty feet away. James swerved, but dropped the quaffle.

"Slytherin in possession!" yelled the announcer kid.

"FUCK!" James exclaimed, turning around rapidly and speeding after the Slytherin chaser.

Alyssa saw the Slytherin chaser coming in her direction. She motioned to Lily, who was nearby, and both flew at him at the same time, hoping to catch the chaser off guard.

Unfortunately, the chaser ducked them both.

But they were lucky.

Sirius slammed a bludger into the chaser's left shoulder. The chaser dropped the quaffle and nearly fell off his broom.

Lily caught the dropped quaffle and raced towards the Slytherin goal. She was nearly there when one of the Slytherin beaters came at her out of nowhere. She dodged, but it was enough distraction for a Slytherin chaser to snatch the quaffle out of her hand.

"Foul! That has to be a foul!" Alyssa shrieked.

"Nobody saw!" James yelled as he went after the chaser. He caught up to the Slytherin. James looped the boy and then hovered in front of him. When the chaser tried to fly past, James blocked him. Lily came up behind and tugged the chaser's shirt.

The chaser turned. "FOUL!" he yelled, but the ref hadn't seen Lily's tug.

"A foul for a foul!" Lily sneered as James grabbed the quaffle from the distracted chaser.

James sped towards the Slytherin goal. Just as he was pulling his arm back to throw the quaffle through one of the hoops, he found himself surrounded by all three Slytherin chasers.

"James! Pass, I'm open!" Lily screamed at him.

"James!" Alyssa yelled as well.

Instead of passing (like a teammate would do,) James suddenly dropped several feet, flew forward and scored a goal.

"Gryffindor scores!" The announcer exclaimed.

"That was stupid! You could've practically _given_ them the quaffle!" Lily yelled at James as they flew the other way, waiting for the Quaffle to go back in play.

"Who's captain? Me or you?" he demanded.

Lily narrowed her eyes to slits before speeding after the quaffle, which had just been thrown back in.

Unfortunately, without either of them intending it, Lily and James were back to competing against each other.

Through three more goals for them and one for Slytherin, they argued and refused to pass.

"Forty to ten in favor of Gryffindor!" The announcer commentated.

"James you have to start passing!" Lily commanded him.

"You're not passing either!" James retorted.

Lily crossed her arms. "You wouldn't pass to me! I was just returning the favor!"

"GUYS!" Sirius began to yell at them, starting to fly over.

"The Gryffindor seeker has just seen the snitch!" yelled the announcer.

Lily, James, and Sirius all turned to where Jeremy was in a dive, closely tailed by the Slytherin seeker. They were about thirty feet from the ground when the Slytherin seeker crashed into Jeremy and both went tumbling the long distance to the ground.

The game was timed out as Jeremy and the Slytherin were being tended to.

Lily sped down to the ground, followed by Sirius and James. When they got to the ground there were so many people around (mainly other teammates) that they couldn't see if Jeremy was okay.

"James and Lily!" Sirius yelled at them to get their attention. Both turned to face Sirius.

"Yes?" James asked.

"You need to stop arguing! Stop playing against each other and start playing like a team! Do you want to lose the game?" Sirius demanded.

James bit his bottom lip as Lily looked at the ground. Sirius was right again. This was the second time Sirius had had to yell at them about competing. They needed to work together, not against each other. James didn't even reprimand Sirius for telling him what to do.

Sirius inwardly laughed at the two, who looked like five year old kids that got caught drawing with crayons on the walls. And then Sirius had a _brilliant_ idea.

"Now shake hands," he said.

"What?" Lily said.

Sirius smiled. "You heard me. Shake. I can't be sure you won't kill one another out there otherwise. Obviously what I said to you at the last Quidditch game didn't take any effect, so I'm making sure it does this time."

James faced Lily and extended his hand. She took it, and they shook briefly before letting go rather quickly.

When Lily had turned back to the crowd around Jeremy and the Slytherin seeker, James gave Sirius a wide-eyed 'what the hell was that' look. Sirius just winked.

Jeremy was fine. As he was standing up, he held up something in his hand that was gold and shiny, and had tiny little wings flapping hopelessly against Jeremy's fist.

"GRYFFINDOR WINS!"

Almost everyone was cheering. The Gryffindor team all engulfed each other in a huge group hug. James numbly realized that Lily was right next to him and his arm was actually draped over her shoulders.

Too bad he didn't know that she realized the exact same thing.

-----------

That night was a full moon. James, Sirius, and Peter waited under James' invisibility cloak as Remus was led down to the Whomping Willow.

While the Marauders were romping about the school grounds and Hogsmeade as animals, Lily, Mel and Kaye were in their dormitory talking.

"… and then he nearly shoved me off my broom, and that loser took the Quaffle!" Lily said, enraged at Slytherin's dirty playing at the Quidditch game that day.

Kaye rolled her eyes. "Lily, we both saw the game." She was getting bored with all the Quidditch talk.

Lily paid her no heed. "And James would _not_ pass me the ball! Sirius had to come yell at us!"

Kaye perked up at the mention of James and Sirius. She wanted to hear Lily talk about James… and she wanted to hear about what Sirius said to them.

"Oh?" Mel asked, interested as well.

"What did Sirius say?" Kaye inquired.

"He told us to start playing like a team and quit competing… because it might cost us the game. And then he made us shake hands because yelling at us didn't work last game."

"Wait. Sirius had to yell at you guys before?" Mel said.

Lily nodded. "Unfortunatley."

"You had to shake hands with James. You had to touch him!" Kaye teased.

"Give me a break, we're not five," Lily said, rolling her eyes. She remembered also the group hug of the team and how she'd been right next to James. She could still feel his arm across her shoulder. _Wait, what are you thinking?_ She asked herself. After pondering it for a few seconds, she decided that she was surprised, that was all.

"Hey, has Sirius claimed his kiss yet?" Mel asked Kaye.

"AAAA!" Kaye screamed. "No! He won't stop holding it over my head! I swear, he's gonna start blackmailing me soon!"

Lily laughed. "I wonder what's taking him so long. That party was a week ago."

"HE LIKES TO TORTURE ME!" Kaye wailed.

"Calm down!" Mel commanded.

"I can't believe we're still talking about this… a week later. I think we should tell Sirius to get it over with so that we can have _normal_ conversations again!" Lily suggested.

--------------

The next morning after they'd spent all night running around as animals, the Marauders were walking zombie-like under James' cloak back to the castle. As James passed the owlry, a sudden thought took him.

_I should ask that girl's name._

He hastily explained to the other Marauders. Remus handed him a piece of parchment and a quill.

"Wait—how come you have this stuff?" James asked.

Remus grinned and shrugged.

James left the safety of the cloak and ran off towards the owlry.

-------------

Lily was awakened by a scratching on the window. Kaye got up to open the window (because her bed was closest and the scratching had awakened her, too), and an owl flew in.

"Can't they wait until breakfast?" Kaye wanted to know.

The owl flew over to Lily. "Oh, it's that knight's owl!"

"Ooh!" Kaye scrambled over to Lily's bed.

The parchment contained only one line. '_What's your name?_'

Lily smiled, just as Kaye was thinking _oh shit! I have to keep her from telling her name._

"Should I tell him?" Lily asked, grabbing a quill.

"No!" Kaye said, a little too fast.

Lily looked at her strangely. "Why not?"

Kaye groped for a thought. "Um… because it ruins the mystery!" She groaned inwardly. That was crap. Was that the best she could come up with?

"What?" Lily asked.

"Um… well I mean… you met him with a mask on. You know virtually nothing about each other except what you talked about that one night. His name or your name might reveal too much… like what if he goes to Hogwarts?"

Lily was about to ask Kaye if she knew something that Lily didn't, but then Lily remembered that she had also wondered if the boy went to Hogwarts or not.

Lily frowned. "Well then how am I supposed to reply?"

"Ask him something else… like a clue about who he is… but not something so obvious as his name…"

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Like what?"

"If he… plays Quidditch?" Kaye said, voicing the first thing that came to her mind. As soon as it was out of her mouth, though, she realized it might be a bad idea.

"Hey yea! That would be awesome if he played Quidditch!" Lily exclaimed, scribbling something on the parchment and giving it back to the owl.

Kaye bit her lip as the owl flew through the open window.

"I'll ask him his name next weekend when I see him."

Kaye's eyes grew wide as she was struck with a thought. At first, she had just thought it would've been funny for Lily and James to meet and realize who they'd been talking too all night on Halloween. But now she was thinking that they might still kill each other if they met at this point… or they would just stop talking and ignore one another (not that they talked much to begin with…) Now it seemed like a perfect matchmaking opportunity. Kaye just had to make sure that Lily and James were friends enough so that when they finally did "meet", they wouldn't murder each other or run away screaming.

And for that, she needed Sirius. And she had to make sure they didn't meet up with each other the next weekend, either.

--end chapter nine!—

A/N--Sorry it took so long to update this! I was on vacation. But now I'm back! scary music

Review and I'll write faster, not to mention love you forever (hahaha j/k)


	10. Matchmaker

Disclaimer: see any of the previous nine chapters.

A/N—for those that commented on this: the first quidditch match they had was against _Ravenclaw_, not Slytherin, so there's only been one game with Slytherin.

And let me say that I'm very very VERY sorry for not updating for like a gazillion years.

Since I was gone for like… hm… five months(?), I'll write a (very short) summary of the first nine chapters, because I know when authors don't update for a long time I forget what went on in their story.

**Chapter one**—First six years at Hogwarts, random little stuff, sets stage for later

**Chapter two**—James made Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, decides he doesn't wanna hold stuff over Lily's head anymore. Lily finds out about him being Head Boy, not Quidditch Captain.

**Chapter three**—James sends Lily anonymous note telling her who Quidditch Captain is (i.e. him) so she won't find out some other less pleasant way. There's Quidditch practice, and Lily's waiting for James to brag about captain.

**Chapter four**—There's a prefects meeting, but Lily gets pissed off by James, Snape, Bellatrix, er… just about everyone and ends it really abruptly.

**Chapter five**—Morning before Quidditch tryouts Lily bets James that he won't get up at 4:30 AM. They have a normal conversation for nearly an hour 'til Lily realizes who she's talking to and leaves. Tryouts were boring.

**Chapter six**—Lily and James get into a fight at practice. Take it out on each other at the game by refusing to pass. Sirius yells at them. At end of practice Alyssa (other chaser) tells them about masque party in Hogsmead.

**Chapter seven**—Masque party. Sirius and Kaye have a bet about which can find the other first. Prize is a kiss. Lily and James end up talking to each other the whole night of the masque, not realizing with whom they're talking. Sirius wins bet but doesn't claim kiss.

**Chapter eight**—Lily and James plan to meet (well change their plans) each other after masque (still don't know who they're talking to.) James apologizes to Lily about Quidditch game at Quidditch practice. Sirius and Kaye keep Lily and James from finding out about the masque. Marauders get James to admit he's in love with Lily.

**Chapter nine**—Lily and James run into each other in hall and Lily doesn't kill James for knocking down her stuff. Game against Slytherin. Lily and James get into another passing war and Sirius has to yell at them again. Gryffindor wins the game. Kaye has to keep Lily from telling "the knight" (James) her name when he owls her in the morning. Kaye decides to play matchmaker and resolves to enlist Sirius' help.

Oh yea, and I'm revamping all the chapters. No major changes will be made, but just changes in sentence structure, addition or elimination of details… etc. etc. etc.

P.S. If I use loads of run-ons, it's because I've been reading Dickens and well, he writes sentences that are _paragraphs_ long.

**CHAPTER TEN** (finally) Matchmaker

Lily, Kaye, and Mel went down to breakfast soon after Lily had sent her reply to the knight via the knight's owl.

All during breakfast Kaye kept looking for Sirius. She needed him if she wanted to push Lily and James together. While Kaye had some pull with Lily, she had nothing with James, so therefore could not make sure that he wouldn't do something completely stupid (such as reveal his name to Lily.)

Finally, when they were almost done eating, the marauders came into the great hall and sat down with Lily, Kaye, and Mel. As the marauders began to eat, Kaye kicked Sirius under the table. When he met her eyes (with a rather confused look in them), she motioned with her head towards the doors very slightly and raised her eyebrows, praying that he would understand. For one agonizing second Kaye was worried that Sirius, who looked a bit confused, would say something stupidly obvious. Then a positively evil expression took over his face as he stood up.

"You owe me something," he said to Kaye, grabbing her wrist to make her stand up as well.

The indignation that Kaye demonstrated was not faked. "What!? No, I'm not—Sirius stop, this is stupid! Sirius!" Kaye protested as Sirius pulled her out of the hall. She was about to say 'that's not what I meant', but realized that that would lead to some strange questions from her friends, who were watching with interest in between bites of food.

When they got outside Sirius began to laugh. "I know that's not what you meant," he said, "but it was all I could think of."

"I hardly think that's funny."

Sirius grinned and shrugged. "So, what _did_ you want? Because you know if you don't have something good, then I'll have no choice but to—"

Kaye interrupted. "Keep James from asking Lily her name."

"What?" For a moment Sirius was lost. "Oh! I didn't even think of that. I just thought it would be funny if they found out who they'd been talking to and then both had a seizure about it."

"That's what I thought, too. But you have to agree, they work together, as was proven at the masque. So now I'm going to make sure that they have a chance—er, that Lily gives James a chance," she stated. "And you're going to help."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "What, play matchmaker? Look, I'm really bad at this stuff—"

"I'll do most of the thinking. Just make sure James doesn't do something stupid," Kaye told him. "Go eat, now." She turned and started to walk away.

"Wait," Sirius stopped her. "You do still owe me something."

This time it was Kaye who was laughing. "Later, Black." She smiled, turned, and walked away, leaving Sirius staring after her.

Sirius walked back into the great hall to find Lily and James in a discussion, not quite a debate, about Quidditch.

"You can't have three chasers all going after the person with the quaffle. Then, if they're fighting each other for the quaffle, you end up playing your own team," Lily said pointedly.

James understood to what she was referring. All their battling at Quidditch matches. "Yes, but if the chasers don't _all_ try to—oh hey Sirius." James stopped in mid-sentence to inquire about the kiss that had supposedly taken place. "How was it?"

"What? Ah, no big deal," he lied.

"I'm sure," Lily muttered sarcastically. "I'm going to go find out what really happened." She stood up and began to leave, followed shortly by Mel (and followed by James' eyes).

James then looked at Sirius. "Nothing?" he asked in surprise. James had a theory that Sirius liked Kaye, but wouldn't tell about it. By 'nothing?' he meant, 'was there nothing there when you kissed her?'

Sirius lightly shrugged. He knew exactly what James was asking (and the reasons and theories behind the question.) "Nothing," he lied again, knowing that he was completely disproving all James' theories.

Just then the mail came in, and James' owl flew over to him with a scrap of parchment clutched in its claws. James took the parchment from the owl and let the owl fly away.

_Do you play Quidditch?_

That's all it said. The princess hadn't told him her name—in fact she'd completely ignored the question.

"What's that?" Sirius inquired, grabbing the parchment from James and reading it.

James snatched it back. "She didn't reply. I wonder… does she know something I don't know? Does she already know who I am?"

Sirius shook his head. "I don't think so. Just answer the question, and ask her something that's not her name."

"What is so wrong with knowing someone's name?" James demanded.

"She could lie. For example, you could very easily say you were me, and she wouldn't know the difference. And if she tells you her name, you'd have to tell her yours. And what if—"

"Okay, Sirius, I get it," James interrupted.

Sirius sighed internally. He really needed Kaye's help; he was not good at this at all. Though he had to admit it wasn't a bad idea what she was trying to do.

While Sirius thought, James scribbled down his answer.

_Yes. Why? Do you?_

He shoved it in his pocket to send later. As soon as the note was out of his hand, his mind became preoccupied with the conversation he'd been having with Lily. She had, not so subtly, made a point about their "battles" with each other, especially at Quidditch games. Was she mad at him for that still? He thought over recent Quidditch games and completely saw her point. It was mainly his fault. He was doing an _outstanding_ job with this 'try to get Lily not to hate me' deal. Really. If possible, he was giving her more reasons this year to loathe him than he had in any other year, when he'd been _trying_ to make her angry. He knew he had no hope, that there was no way in hell that she would look at him the way he looked at her, but he couldn't give up.

Lily and Mel went up to the dormitory hoping to find Kaye there. Kaye was sitting on her bed reading a book.

"So, Sirius didn't tell us anything useful. What _really_ happened?" Lily demanded.

Kaye looked up. "Er, nothing. He had pity on me and made it fast."

"No tongues then?" Mel sniggered.

Kaye rolled her eyes. "No. Don't look so unhappy about it."

Later that night, Lily went down in the common room to get something she thought she forgot and found James sitting alone pouring intensely over Quidditch strategies and diagrams. She quietly walked over and looked over his shoulder, planning to throw an insult as a surprise and make him feel stupid.

"Hi, Lily," he muttered without looking up. She didn't have any idea (since he looked completely absorbed), but butterflies came alive in his stomach, and his concentration switched completely to her.

She glared and sat down. "Well I was going to surprise you with an insult, but you ruined it."

"Sorry," he said, fighting to keep his voice indifferent.

"So how long have you been working on all that…?" she asked him.

James glanced at the clock. "Er… two hours maybe?"

"Do you want help?" She offered, then added (after a strange glance from him) "I'm over the captain thing, you just look like you need help. I want the team to do well, too," she justified.

"I'm just, I mean… I thought about what we were talking about before, and I was trying… to…" he tripped over his words as she took one of the pieces of parchment, trying to explain that he had taken what she said into consideration. "Yeah, help would be good," he consented finally, giving up on his explanation.

Lily didn't really look at the parchment though. For some reason James' voice pulled a string in her memory… but she couldn't place it. She shrugged and figured that she'd only ever heard him when he was angry and it was strange to talk to him like a normal person. Though that made no sense, because she'd have had to have heard him talk like a normal person at least once in six and a half years…

"What's wrong?" James broke into her thoughts.

"What? Oh, nothing," Lily said. She hadn't realized she'd been frowning. "I thought… forget it. Anyway, Quidditch," she continued, mentally reaching for the correct subject.

"Um yeah." James paused for a second, turning his quill over in his fingers. "Look, I'm really sorry about not passing and getting into arguments with you at matches. And I'm _really_ sorry for apologizing once and then doing it again at the next match."

Lily smiled, a bit surprised at his thoughtfulness. "Don't worry about it. Really it's as much my fault, too." She looked down at the parchment in her hands. _Quidditch_, she thought, _I'm here to talk to him about Quidditch, because I want the team to do well. _The diagram on the sheet gave her an idea.

"I have an idea," she told him. "Can I…?" she asked, motioning to his quill and a blank piece of parchment.

He nodded and handed them to her. She quickly sketched out another diagram and explained her idea to him.

"That's really good. I can't believe I haven't come up with something like that after two hours," he joked.

Lily laughed. "Thanks."

James took the parchment. "Can I have this?" he wanted to know.

A wave of déjà vu that Lily couldn't explain poured over her. Did he remind her of a character in a movie? Did his voice sound like one of her favorite singers? Did she have a dream about him that her subconscious mind was trying to remember… or something equally improbable? What was this?

"You look… pensive," James stated cautiously.

Lily looked up. "I had…" she wondered if she should tell him? "I just…" no, she wouldn't. "… was thinking about more Quidditch strategies."

"You've already helped a ton." James grinned. "I wasn't thinking straight before." Well, he wasn't thinking straight now, either, but for a different reason this time.

Again, Lily had the unsettling feeling of seeing James as a human where before he'd just been an adversary. It made her feel guilty. She looked at the boy sitting in front of her and realized that she had no real reason to hate him, as he obviously didn't hate her any longer. For the first time, she saw him as a potential friend. "Glad I could help."

"Lily!" a voice yelled. Soon, Kaye came into view.

"Lily, I need help with this homework—oh, hi James." The moment Kaye saw who was sitting across from Lily, she wanted to slap herself. What did she just interrupt? There were Quidditch diagrams all over the table, and neither looked angry, so they must've been having a real conversation. How could she get in the way like this? The situation looked like it had _so much promise!_

"Hi," James replied, as Lily said, "yeah, no problem. Which homework?"

"Um, it's upstairs. But we can do it later, if you're busy now…" Kaye tried to give Lily an opportunity to stay without turning around and bolting back upstairs (which she was very inclined to do at this point.)

"Ah, no, I sort of just sat down here without invitation anyway, so…" Lily trailed off, standing up. "See you later," she said to James.

"Yeah, bye," James murmured as Lily and Kaye walked away. He sat there with Lily's diagram in one hand, staring at it. He must've done something right, because they hadn't gotten into an argument. She had talked to him. Lily Evans had sat down at his table and talked to him, without either of them engaging in insults or arguments.

He was floating.

A/N—I am not sports-savvy. I don't know anything about strategy for normal games, so I don't want to act like a fool and try to do it for Quidditch.

And I'm very very _very_ sorry at the shortness of that chapter. First I don't update for a gazillion years, then I update with a chapter that's very short and doesn't have much going on in it. I feel so bad. But I wrote this whole thing with a massive case of writer's block… ::cries:: I'm sorry.


	11. Unmasked

Same disclaimer.

If any of you even still follow my story, here's a reminder of what happened:

**Chapter one**—First six years at Hogwarts, random little stuff, sets stage for later

**Chapter two**—James made Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, decides he doesn't wanna hold stuff over Lily's head anymore. Lily finds out about him being Head Boy, not Quidditch Captain.

**Chapter three**—James sends Lily anonymous note telling her who Quidditch Captain is (i.e. him) so she won't find out some other less pleasant way. There's Quidditch practice, and Lily's waiting for James to brag about captain.

**Chapter four**—There's a prefects meeting, but Lily gets pissed off by James, Snape, Bellatrix, er… just about everyone and ends it really abruptly.

**Chapter five**—Morning before Quidditch tryouts Lily bets James that he won't get up at 4:30 AM. They have a normal conversation for nearly an hour 'til Lily realizes who she's talking to and leaves. Tryouts were boring.

**Chapter six**—Lily and James get into a fight at practice. Take it out on each other at the game by refusing to pass. Sirius yells at them. At end of practice Alyssa (other chaser) tells them about masque party in Hogsmead.

**Chapter seven**—Masque party. Sirius and Kaye have a bet about which can find the other first. Prize is a kiss. Lily and James end up talking to each other the whole night of the masque, not realizing with whom they're talking. Sirius wins bet but doesn't claim kiss.

**Chapter eight**—Lily and James plan to meet (well change their plans) each other after masque (still don't know who they're talking to.) James apologizes to Lily about Quidditch game at Quidditch practice. Sirius and Kaye keep Lily and James from finding out about the masque. Marauders get James to admit he's in love with Lily.

**Chapter nine**—Lily and James run into each other in hall and Lily doesn't kill James for knocking down her stuff. Game against Slytherin. Lily and James get into another passing war and Sirius has to yell at them again. Gryffindor wins the game. Kaye has to keep Lily from telling "the knight" (James) her name when he owls her in the morning. Kaye decides to play matchmaker and resolves to enlist Sirius' help.

**Chapter ten**—Sirius pretends like he's going to force Kaye into kissing him, so that Kaye can talk to him alone. She convinces him to help her, and both of them have to pretend like there was a kiss and it was meaningless. Sirius has to convince James not to tell "the princess" his name. Lily stumbles upon James in the common room doing Quidditch things and they have a lovely conversation, in which Lily thinks a bunch of things about James are familiar but can't remember why they would be.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The stairs to the boys' dormitory creaked, pulling James back down to earth. Sirius emerged, sat in the armchair across from James, and looked at him quizzically.

"Why have you got that look on your face?" he questioned.

James straightened out the muscles of his face into what he hoped was a more neutral expression. He was about to tell Sirius what happened, when instead he decided to hand him the diagram that Lily had drawn.

Sirius took the diagram and made a disbelieving face. "A Quidditch diagram? This isn't even your handwriting."

"Exactly."

If the penmanship belonged to who he thought it belonged to, Sirius had an explanation to the dreamy look on James' face. But he still wanted to hear James say it.

"Who's is it, then?" Sirius asked.

James smiled. "Lily's."

Sirius returned the smile. "Tell me how you managed that."

James repeated the conversation (almost verbatim) back to Sirius. Sirius wanted to look excited and happy for James, but he was distracted by something else.

James saw the distressed look on Sirius' face, and attributed it to a thought that had been in his head since breakfast. A similar thought had been in Sirius' head all day, nagging at him.

"You didn't kiss her, did you?" James asked.

"No, I didn't."

----------

When Lily and Kaye got back to their dormitory, Mel was sitting on her bed in a panic. She had forgotten to do a bit of homework that was due the next day. Kaye's eyes widened as she realized she'd done the same thing. Both of them rushed off to the library.

Lily sat down on the edge of her bed, but before she had time to digest what had happened in the common room with James she heard a tapping sound. Outside, she saw a familiar owl sitting on the windowsill, a piece of parchment tied to it's leg. She let the owl in and, as usual, it didn't fly off when she untied the parchment.

_Yes. Why? Do you?_

Lily replied that yes, she played Quidditch, and that that had been the reason she'd asked. She paused, wondering if she should write more. Honestly, Lily was glad to get a chance to write to the knight without her two friends feeding her rubbish about mystery and what to write.

Her thoughts wandered back down to the common room, where just minutes before she and James had actually had a civilized conversation. A long civilized conversation. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she was confused. Why did they hate each other? Why did she hate him?

She began to write on the parchment, unsure if it was really wise to ask a complete stranger for advice. But maybe the knight was the only person she could ask—as far as she knew, he was unbiased. And even if he did go to Hogwarts, she doubted he knew anything more about her and James than the rest of the school did, so how could he guess that's what she was talking about. She chose her words carefully, unsure of how much to reveal, and unsure of her feelings.

_I play Quidditch, which is why I asked if you did. I'm not really sure if I should be asking a stranger for advice, but I feel like I can talk to you almost better than I can talk to my best friends. I recently realized that someone I've disliked for rather a long time could potentially be a friend. Two thoughts came with my realization. The first one was how could I possibly try to be friends with this person after we've been so nasty to each other. The other thought was (and I'm a bit ashamed to admit this) me wondering what was wrong with me. If my first instincts about (and my past experiences with) this person are anything to go by, why would I be wondering **now** if they would make a good friend?_

Lily paused, unsure of how to end the letter. She didn't want to sign her name, in case the knight went to Hogwarts. He could _easily_ tell James about this. Lily ended up leaving the letter as it was with the abrupt ending. She tied it to the owl's leg and let it fly away before she could change her mind.

As she watched it soar into the night, her thoughts went back to James. Part of her wanted to say that James was willing to be her friend (at the least.) But he was so volatile around her—one minute being friendly and the next minute being an arrogant prat. Well, she thought, that wasn't all together true. Lately he seemed to be doing his best to be nice to her.

Her thoughts were cut short by Mel and Kaye, coming back to the dormitory, finished homework in their hands.

"What's with the face?" Kaye asked Lily as she sat down on her bed.

"What face?" Lily responded.

"You had this really pensive and brooding look on your face," Kaye told her.

Lily grimaced. "I suppose it's an introduction to what I'm about to tell you."

Lily told them about the conversation with James, Kaye mentally slapping herself when Lily got to Kaye's interruption. Then Lily went on to tell them that she had written to the knight. The subject of the note she had left out, lying and saying it was about Quidditch. She didn't know why, but she didn't want to tell her friends about all the confusion that was invading her thoughts.

------------------

Back in his dormitory, James found his owl waiting for him at the end of his four poster bed. Remus said he'd heard it tapping on the window, and had let it in. Sirius was sitting on his bed, pretending to read a book. None of them were really in the mood to talk. Nonetheless, Remus couldn't help asking who the letter was from.

"My mother," James lied, trying to make his voice a normal mix of apathy and disappointment. He gave the owl a treat before it flew off to the owlry.

He stuck the letter on his bedside table, still folded, as though he was uninterested in it. He pretended to be tired, and eventually everyone went to sleep. In the privacy of his curtains, James unfolded the letter, reading it by wandlight.

When he finished, he almost smiled. He and this girl had more in common than one could imagine.

_Ironically, that predicament reminds me of a ridiculous situation I've found myself in lately. All I can say is that maybe you should give this person a try. It might seem doubtful right now, but you might actually find a friend somewhere you weren't expecting. Honestly, I don't know if you even want my advice though. I seem to be trying to do something similar, and it's absolutely not working out in my favor. I won't bore you with the gory details, but we can just call it unrequited love and leave it at that._

He almost crossed out the last part, but decided if anyone would understand, she would. As long as he left his name off of the letter, there would be no way for anyone to figure out what he was talking about.

He tied the letter to his owl's leg, but told it to have a rest in the owlry and to deliver it some time the next day.

----------------

Over the next week personal interaction between James and Lily was sparse, but written interaction was plentiful. When they were face to face, each of them was polite but distant, owing to a range of emotions from embarrassment to uncertainness. James thought Lily's attitude was her usual coldness, and was beginning to believe that the few kind conversations they had exchanged had just been flukes. Lily, on the other hand, believed James' distance was due to the fact that he was just as much of an adversary as ever.

Lily replied to James' note the day after he sent it.

_The "gory details" would hardly bore me. You tried to help me, maybe I can help you. I don't know what to say without knowing more of the story (which you don't have to divulge unless you want to), but I will ask you this: does she know? Have you told her? I know it seems like the awful painful thing to do, and I probably wouldn't be able to follow my own advice, but you know what they say about desperate times._

And he replied:

_I don't know if she knows or not. I mean, I sort of told her a while ago that I kind of liked her, but that was all so uncertain. As for telling her, __**really**__ telling her? It does seem like the only way at this point, but… I don't know what to say except for that we aren't on the friendliest of terms and I don't doubt she would take it as some kind of cruel joke. By the way, how's your foe-friend coming? And on the subject of friends, I want to tell you that you're easier to talk to than my friends. Which is weird, since I've only ever known you on paper… and once in a mask._

Lily wrote back:

_I'm glad you say that, because I can't say any of this to anyone else I know. Isn't it strange that you can almost get to know someone better without having to deal with outward appearances, or problems in day to day life. The "friend" thing isn't working out at all—we hardly speak, and I think my surmises from that other letter were due to lack of sleep or something stupid. I'm pretty sure that we're still adversaries, just as we've always been. The idea of friendship was just an illusion. Any progress with your girl?_

James couldn't get out of his head how familiar that handwriting looked…. He put it out of his mind and replied:

_I'm sorry you couldn't make friends with this adversary. I guess some people are just prats, and they will continue to be prats until they die. On the subject of my pathetic problem, there's nothing to report. I can't do anything around her. If I open my mouth, I make a complete idiot of myself, and if I don't, it makes it that much easier for her to ignore me. I completely agree with what you're saying about appearances getting in the way. For example, I feel like this girl has a preconceived notion about me, and if she just got rid of it and actually **talked** to me for once, maybe she'd se something more of the person that it seems you see._

Lily knew he was in love with someone else, but that didn't stop the twinge in her stomach, or the quickening of her heart whenever she got one of his letters. He was so easy to talk to… But how ridiculous was it to be falling for someone she'd only met once? She had never even seen his face, and only knew of him what he wrote in his letters.

----------------

It was Friday, finally the end of the week. Sirius and Kaye hadn't been able to get Lily or James to talk about their letters to the "knight" and the "princess", which was highly worrying them both. It didn't help matters much that Sirius couldn't torment Kaye about the kiss anymore. Now he had no excuse to talk to her, so aside from the obvious restraint of not being able to discuss Lily and James, he had no way to find out if he could get that kiss after all.

That morning, Kaye went to breakfast and left early, hoping to catch Sirius on his way down. She waited at the marble staircase for him.

"Why are you sitting there?" asked a voice behind where she was sitting.

Kaye turned around. "Hi Sirius," she said.

"How are… things?" he asked, lowering his voice. She got up, and motioned for him to walk down the corridor away from the Great Hall.

"Things are bad. I can't get her to tell me anything. For all we know, they've found out about each other and are sending howlers."

Sirius shook his head. "Same." He took a breath. He wasn't going to end up pining over someone like James was. "It's a shame about that fake kiss," he ventured. "I miss having an excuse to torment you."

"It doesn't have to be fake…" she said slowly.

He didn't say anything else. He only smiled and kissed her for real this time.

-------------------

Thank goodness tomorrow was Saturday, thought Lily. Saturday. Why was that ringing a bell? A jolt went through her as she remembered. She was supposed to meet that knight in Hogsmeade tomorrow. But neither of them had mentioned it, and honestly she had forgotten until now. Did he even still remember?

It was already late in the day, and she wanted to send him a message before tomorrow. She hadn't received his reply to her last letter yet, but she was worried she would get it too late to reply about Hogsmeade. But how could she send him a message with another owl? Owls were smart, but not psychic. They wouldn't understand a direction such as "the knight" or "the guy that sent this letter."

She went back to her dormitory to drop off her bag before dinner, and thankfully, the knights owl was sitting on her windowsill.

James got her letter later that night. It read:

_I don't feel like I can really know you until we've met, face to face. Remember we agreed to meet in Hogsmeade tomorrow at 8? Meet me where we sat talking during the masque._

He hastily scrawled his reply that yes, he would be there.

-------------------

"Lily! You forgot to go to dinner!" Mel exclaimed, walking into the girls' room.

Lily looked at the clock, and realized that she had been sitting on her bed for over an hour. She hadn't left after sending the letter to the knight.

"Good thing for you, I brought you some food," Kaye said, coming through the door after Mel, holding something wrapped in a napkin.

"Thanks," Lily said gratefully. She took the food from Kaye and began to eat it.

She was about to tell them both about the knight and their plan to meet, when Kaye burst out: "I have something to tell you guys! I have been keeping it in all day."

"What?" Mel asked quickly.

"Remember how Sirius gave me that kiss a week ago? Well, he didn't. And… well I got it today, and it was really good… and I think I like him," the last bit came out more like a squeal.

"You said you didn't like him! I knew you did!" Lily crowed, momentarily forgetting what was causing all the butterflies in her stomach.

"Are you going to go out now?" Mel inquired.

Kaye smiled. "I think so."

They spent another ten minutes talking about Sirius and Kaye until an owl scratched at the window. Lily ran to it and unlatched it, letting the owl in. This time, it flew away before Lily even had a chance to unfold the parchment.

_I would love to._

That's all it said, but it caused the butterflies in Lily's stomach to intensify.

Kaye and Mel were staring at her. "You look happy… ish. Tell us what's going on! You've been silent all week!" Mel exclaimed.

"Okay, okay," Lily consented. She commenced to tell them about the letters (leaving out the bits about James Potter) and how they had agreed to meet tomorrow. Kaye almost opened her mouth to try to stop Lily, but she realized that it would be pointless and suspicious at this point.

The rest of the night was spent squealing about Lily and Kaye's prospective romances.

-----------------------

James left his dormitory the next day at 7:30. He knew he would get there early, but he couldn't stand just sitting around anymore. He had told Sirius, Remus, and Peter, and had been surprised at how encouraging they had been. It was actually almost strange how excited they seemed to get.

James walked across the grounds, covered in his cloak. He reached the Whomping Willow and prodded the knot on the trunk with a long stick. He slowly made his way through the tunnel, wondering why there were butterflies in his stomach. Though he was still in love with Lily, through the past week, this other girl had seemed so much more tangible, and they got along so well…

Reaching the shrieking shack, James stowed his cloak in a corner, and snuck out the back door, skirting the shack widely incase anyone was watching.

He found the bench and sat down on it, fully aware that he was about twenty minutes early. He waited, a little bit more nervous than he would have cared to admit.

Lily used the one-eyed witch passage that the Marauders had told her about. Her heart was racing. She didn't know what she was going to say when she got there. She didn't even know who she expected to find.

She barely remembered coming through the trapdoor or leaving Honeydukes. Every step took her closer to that bench, and to finally meeting that knight. As she approached, the bench came into sight, and she could see a figure sitting on it, facing away from her. Drawing closer, she could see that the robes he was wearing were Hogwarts robes, which made her stomach jolt. A few steps closer revealed that he was wearing glasses. He had not yet turned around. That black hair looked so familiar…

Recognition and realization hit her like a punch to the stomach, and she stopped two feet away from the bench.

"No," she said in disbelief.

James Potter turned around at the sound of her voice. For a moment they just stared at each other.

James found his voice first. "You were writing….?"

But Lily found hers a second later. "Is this a trick? I didn't think you would go that low but…" she started to back up.

James caught her arm just as she turned to run.

"Let go," she bit coldly.

"Stop," James said. "Please, don't go. I didn't play a trick on you. I'm just as surprised as you are. But we were friends. We got along," he beseeched her.

Lily wanted to be angry. She wanted to run away, but his eyes looked so genuine. She pulled from his grasp and went to sit down on the bench. He remained standing, and again they were staring silently at each other.

"I don't know what to say," Lily said finally.

Lily struggled to organize her jumbled thoughts. James was the knight. She had been writing to James Potter, her nemesis, her enemy… and amazingly he had been a friend, and more. One of his letters came into her head.

"I judged you," Lily started slowly. "I judged you on a preconceived notion." He sat down and she looked at him.

"I did the same thing." He was surprised when Lily's words came into his head. Have you told her? No, he hadn't told her how he felt. He wasn't sure he could. This was extraordinarily awkward, and he thought she might still be mad.

She got up to go again, and this time he didn't stop her.

--------------

James knew he had lost his chance. That was it, that was when he should have told her how he really felt. They could have a chance together. But James wasn't sure Lily knew that. Maybe they would stop being adversaries after this, but he couldn't see them being anything more than awkward acquaintances. Lily had despised him too much before this to have her mind completely changed. What were a few bits of parchment going to do?

Lily lay awake all night, turning the situation over and over in her head. She herself had been wondering if James would make a good friend. And, she realized, she had definitely felt something for him when all she knew was his letters. But he was the person she had most hated for six and a half years. When she thought about it more, though, she realized how easy it was to talk to him when they were getting along, not to mention in the letters. She may have been right in feeling like their enmity was pointless.

She sat up in bed, abruptly. She could not believe the conclusion that was running through her head, but there it was. She wanted him. But how did he feel? She had no idea. He hadn't given any indication that he fancied her since their fifth year. He had spoken of unrequited love, but at this point that could have meant anything.

I have to find him, she thought. She didn't know where to look, but maybe she could go into his dorm… or she could send an owl? Everything she thought of sounded stupid, but she felt useless and restless just sitting there doing nothing. She had to move.

Lily walked down to the common room, which was still faintly lit by the dying embers in the fireplace. And sitting on a couch close to the fire was a figure, staring into the dull glow.

Lily sat down on the couch next to him, but he didn't turn to look at her.

"I have to tell you something," he said, "even though I doubt it's anything you want to hear."

He knew he was being stupid, but he had to do it. He had to just tell her. If she reacted like he expected she would, well at least he would have the peace of mind to know he tried everything.

"I said something about unrequited love in one of my letters to you." He didn't dare look at her. "It's for you. It always has been."

Lily looked at him. "It's not unrequited," she said.

He looked at her quickly, hopefully. The next instant he had leaned over and pressed his mouth to hers.

------the end------


End file.
